A Light in the Ruins
by ClassyMuse
Summary: It was the end of the world as they knew it. What remained of the Wayne family believed they were alone and intended to live out the days of human society on their own until their security measures were tripped. R&R I suck at summaries. *Hiatus is over!
1. Nomad

_**I don't own anything by DC or WB. Please review.**_

To drive a Prius or to drive a Silverado? That was the question of the early morning as she made her way east to Gotham looking at two cars parked in a suburban cul-de-sac. Her chevy truck was old and not practical anymore with the extra baggage. The Prius had the better gas mileage and could snake its way through a lot of abandoned cars easily, but on the other hand the Silverado could hold more stuff and was better for off-road situations. She could consult with the man in the back of her truck, but he was passed out from illness. Thankfully not with the one that wiped out any place with heavy populations, like it did in Bludhaven, like it did everywhere else. If it was that virus he would have been dead within twenty-four hours. That was how it worked. He had been ill for days, more than likely the flu or something of that nature. She instead let the dog do the work.

It had been two years since the initial super virus went rampant among anyone in its path saving for the few old world nut jobs and people with extreme cases of paranoia. They will dead from other reasons such as suicide or killed in a fight for supplies. Her father made sure his daughter was safe, drove across the country to bring her home from college during the initial outbreak.

The place that she was sure at one point had children running up and down the streets laughing and playing was now quiet as the graveyard. The houses were all boarded up and each door had a bio-hazard do-not-enter sign attached to it. Two years ago the health departments around the world sealed up families who had the killer virus in their homes. None of them ever came out. Sometimes you could smell the death from miles away, but it has been so long the smell of rotting infected flesh was a distant memory.

The dark haired germen shepherd had proved reliable for the last six months and was loyal. If something was wrong he would bark and run straight back to her. She called him John, like John Connors, but there was no way this dog could save the world. The world was gone. Every city she had been in looking for survivors was in ruins. She had given up looking a few times. She couldn't decide if she was actually looking for survivors or looking for a friend for the end of the world as she knew it, but the dog was a start. All efforts to help those in need were also dead. Rumor had it that even The Justice League retreated from Earth never to come back.

Batman was assumed to have gone with them. The man, during his lucid periods, said he would and cursed him for it.

John came sauntering back and licked her hand, it was a good sign. She decided on the Silverado and casually emptied the vehicle of all its previous contents, siphoned gas from surrounding vehicles, and loaded up her own supplies of food, water and weapons strategically factoring in the man who called himself The Red Hood in the Tetris like equation. She found him days ago on the side of the road was reluctant to take him in, even though he wasn't infected with the virus, he didn't show the signs (pussy bumps and glazed eyes and dead. The virus claimed its victims in a twenty-four hour period.), she wasn't sure if she could take the risk. But her father wouldn't be happy about leaving a man behind. He instilled all his military mentality in her when he returned from Iraq when she was sixteen and taught her how to survive, even though he was mentally shaken when he finished his tours of duty.

She woke up the man and coaxed him out of the bed of the truck and guided him to the back of the Silverado. He complied. She was happy to see that the Silverado had a CD player and gladly went through a couple more cars that John approved of hunting down some music. Radios were all static and it was a nice change to have some music. She grabbed about five of them and rejoiced when she pulled out 38 Special: Greatest Hits; The music of her childhood. Sure the band was old but her dad always played classic rock. She found The Cars, some Backstreet Boys, Alanis Morisette, and Venga Boys.

The Silverado started and she called for John to hop in the passenger seat. The music started and she couldn't stop singing. They pulled out of the cul-de-sac and headed for the back roads into Gotham. High ways, she learned, were silent traffic jams. _Out on the backstreet, taking love where I can. I found a sweet Madonna with a Bible in her hand. She's waiting, anticipating for someone to save her soul. Well I ain't no New Messiah, but I'm close enough for rock n' roll._

The world seemed a little brighter and less dead when music was playing. For the first time in months she could justify smiling even as she entered hell, Gotham. The man protested a few times in the last day or so, but she countered him saying there was a rich man who lived there at one point, his place was huge like a castle, it was shelter, and if he wanted a part of it he was going to have to shut up. She thought and dreamed in her head that the place had gothic grandeur, had clothes (so she could get out of the nasty jeans, old yellow tank top and brown jacket, and her combat boots), running water so bathe and drink. She checked herself out in the rearview mirror and decided her first priority was to shower and wash her light brown hair and scrub the ingrained dirt off her skin. Food for her, John, and the stranger to eat, rationed out of course. But what she looked forward to was sleeping on a bed, an actual bed. Not on a sleeping bag in the back of a car or under a shitty park shelter, but in a bed in a house. The woman worried a little about the man in the back of the vehicle. He had been ill for days and didn't show any change; he needed to not be on the road and be still. She was so excited to be bridge at the city limits, undeterred by the bio-hazard signs. It had been two years, the virus had to have been gone by now.

She had to get through the city even if it meant driving through the night, something she wasn't a fan of since she got her driver's license five years ago. No Entrance Permitted signs were plowed over and ignored all the speed limits on the lower streets. Freeways she could see still had abandoned cars in a pile of chaos. The Police department she could see with the dwindling sunlight was wrecked; the hospital looked like something out of a horror movie, like "28 Days Later". Empty, dark, sterile, and dead. She pulled over at an abandoned newsstand with John who leapt from the car and ran to the stand, sniffing around before returning wagging his furry tail. The woman looked through the place for a map, something that would lead them to the rumored castle. There was no such luck. She noticed something though, the name Wayne was on everything. She looked up to the tall towers and saw one with a big W on it. Whoever this Wayne was had to be really important and really rich. Maybe, she thought, he owned the castle. She retreated back to the vehicle and crawled in the back, woke up the man to give him some water. He took it greedily. The woman was getting more concerned about him as she noticed his breathing was labored and shallow.

She didn't believe that this man was The Red Hood. That vigilante disappeared along with every other do-gooder in the world. She looked at him in the eyes. "If you are who you say you are then you must know Gotham well enough to know who this Wayne is, right?"

He nodded.

She sighed, "Okay, then where does Wayne live?"

"North," he whispered. "At the highest point looking over Gotham."

She crawled out and sat back in the driver's seat, kicked the Silverado into high gear, and headed north listening very closely to the man, who claimed he was The Red Hood, breathing. She didn't care about his name or telling him hers. They had to make it first. Another thing her father taught her when it came to survival was to never tell her name or get close to anyone by knowing theirs. Chances were they weren't going to be around the next day.

The sun had set and the moon began to rise over the city of Gotham. She had made it past the towering buildings and was now in the edge of town. She looked to the horizon and saw what he had described as a big house on the highest point looking over Gotham, and then she pulled over to crawl into the back and check on the man. He was burning up again and was restless, but she had to ask him one question. "Is there anything I need to know about this place before we get there?" she asked.

He wheezed, "If you can get in-" and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Damn it, he passed out again. John looked back and whined with sad puppy eyes. She cooed to him, "Its fine bud. We are almost there."

_**What did you all think? Please review. I write faster for them.**_


	2. Exposure

_**I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING DC OR WB. As always R&R!**_

Night had fallen by the time they reached the wooded parts on the edge of the city limit. She had seen a few cities that never slept and glowed at night. Now that everything was dead, abandoned or destroyed it was a few hundred dark buildings. Gotham was different. The city when absent of artificial light looked menacing and evil. She rolled down the window to get a breath of fresh evening air and noticed a slight smell of rain. There was a quiet lightning bolt that flashed in the sky. She really wanted to get off the road and into that castle more than ever.

The farther they drove thunder rolled and the road in front of them was more beaten and riddled with pot holes. She did her best to avoid them as much as possible. She flipped on the bright lights and stomped on the breaks; there was a wrought iron gate in front of them. She caught her breath, slipped her brown jacket and went to open the gate. No such luck, it was chained up. She got back in the car and for a moment patted herself on the back; there was no way the Prius was going to break those gates down when you rammed the vehicle into them.

The Silverado moseyed up the long drive to the dark silhouette of the castle, now getting much closer she took the place to be a mansion of gothic grandeur. The drive ended by the large front doors of the place and she brought the vehicle to a stop, popped the back, pulled the man out and threw his arm over her shoulder, half-dragging half-guiding him to the doors as a light rain began to fall. John was already at the door scratching at the rusty handle and wagging his tail. That was a good sign. She kicked the door open and entered the darkness slowly lowering the man down to the marble floor. She could feel him burning up despite his shaking. She peeled off his jacket and laid him down in his jeans and t-shirt hoping the floor would cool him down. John took off running into the shadows. It was only a few minutes later she heard his violent growling and a yelp.

She called into the darkness, "John! Come, boy!"

Out of nowhere she was knocked down a few feet away from the man and had her pinned by her elbows. It had to be human, she thought. There was a glint of a knife and a snarl from whoever or whatever wielded it. "Damian, stand down!" shouted a booming voice. The person on top turned still keeping her under his knees, "But this is an intruder father, and she had Todd!"

She didn't fight back. It was obvious that she was an intruder. Whoever lived here had every right, even though she wasn't a fan, of pulling a weapon on her. There was a plus side, she thought. They knew who the guy she had been lugging around was. There were a few more footsteps, lighter ones, but the source was still hidden in the shadows, even when whoever it was picked up this 'Todd' character and dragged him out of sight. There was another voice, "It really is Jason. He doesn't look too hot." This voice was lighter and less gritty and booming. She preferred it.

"Take him to his room, get him taken care of," said the booming deep voice.

The person on top of asked, "What about her?" He turned back to her and leaned close to her face letting her have a somewhat decent look. This was a kid, at least a young teenager. She used to beat twerps like this when she was twelve, but she couldn't get him off. A sign of the ripe age of twenty-two slowing her down. This kid had slightly tanned skin, ebony hair and eyes that could kill. She learned to respect her enemy, but this kid was really pushing it. The booming voice spoke from the shadows, "Just don't kill her."

She panicked slightly under him, trying to get free and run back to the Silverado, but he pressed on her pressure points and she blacked out.

Bruce pulled Damian off the woman's body and checked her for any form of lethal weapons. She had a small pistol and a knife on her. This put him on edge, and Jason's condition didn't help the situation at all. Damian ran back to retrieve hand cuffs and helped his father carry her light body up the stairs to one of the empty rooms, then promptly chained her foot to the fire place. They left her unconscious body there along with a little water for when she would awake.

Dick slowly carried his younger brother up to his room, stripped him down and threw the windows open to cool Jason down. Bruce entered the room and looked over his lost son with genuine concern. "It is the virus is it?" he asked.

Dick looked up his father, "Doesn't look like it, but I'm not sure."

Bruce brushed the sweaty strands of hair from his son's eyes. "What if it is?" Bruce's voice was somber at the thought.

They had seen so many die in the past. They lost Alfred, who was caught up in the chaos when grocery shopping and a patron was caught with symptoms. Barbara and Jim, Leslie, Stephanie, Cassandra, the whole League, all were lost or disappeared to their alien worlds. Tim couldn't handle the losses and put a pistol in his mouth some six months earlier. It was just the three of them until tonight, waiting their days out until their time came or they hoped for a miracle. Dick spoke up, "Bruce, if it was I don't think it could hurt, considering how we are merely existing at the moment."

He sighed, "I will go talk to her." Bruce was never a man who liked guns, but he knew they had a way to get what he wanted when he wasn't The Batman. He opened to drawer in the bedside table and took out Jason's old gun he had their when he was younger. It didn't need to shoot well, just for show. He left the room passing Damian who smiled at the sight of his father holding a deadly weapon, like a little assassin would.

She woke up without any trouble other than losing track of time. She didn't like what she woke up to. She was in a big empty room chained up to a cold fireplace with three feet of chain at her ankles. She remembered everything rather vividly and knew that whoever knew 'Todd' put her there. She fought the chain for only a moment but figured if she played her cards right she could be released so there was no need to waste the energy. The door opened and she sat up indian style. She saw the gun in his hand; Respect your enemy, she thought. The big guy came through and pulled a chair out from behind another door to an adjoining room. He sat in front of her, staring with piercing icy eyes to her warm dark brown pair. She intimidated by him.

He spoke first, "Where did you come from?"

It was silent while she tried to find her voice. Quietly she muttered, "Ohio. Just a little bit from Toledo."

He raised the gun up, not aiming at her but the gesture was implied. "Why are you not dead like the others?"

That was a loaded question. "I didn't get sick."

He still wasn't showing any sign of lowering the gun any time soon. "Why?"

"I don't know. When everything happened my father took me into his shelter. Got past the barricades around our complex and went into Michigan's thumb."

"Alright, where is your father? Are you a scout?"

She remembered the night her father left to find food in the woods and never came back. She presumed he was dead and moved on a few days later. It was not a good time. "I am assuming he is dead."

He lowered is gun and his face looked kinder and softer to her. "What is your name?"

She looked up at him and thought about how she wanted to answer this question. She was taught to never give her name or bother to learn others. It kind of worked the same when when a kid brings home a pet and their parents want to get rid of it; if you name it, you get attached to it, and when it is gone you are miserable. But she answered anyway. "Sarah. What is yours?"

"Bruce," he replied.

"Well, despite all of this, it is nice to meet you. Can you answer a question of mine now?"

"Yes, you may."

"Who is this Wayne guy or family? Did they used to live here? I mean someone rich enough to own Gotham when it was a booming metropolis would live in a big place like this, right? Or you a squatter?"

"The Wayne family still lives here," he responded solemnly. "At least what is left of it, especially tonight."

"So you know this Todd guy?"

"He was my son, my soldier. Jason Todd."

She didn't say anything for a minute. It was really odd for her to hear him say soldier like that. The fact that he also put his words in past tense also raised some red flags. He unchained her, but Sarah didn't run. She just asked a few more logical questions while they talked. He said he wanted to know everything about her, his reason was to make sure she wasn't a psychopath. She just wanted to know what happened to them, but Bruce would not answer. The pain at the thought of whatever was going through his mind showed in his face, subtle but enough for someone who could read people well would notice. "Where is my dog?" she asked.

"We had to lock him up."

"Alright where is he then? He wouldn't hurt anyone, at least no one who wouldn't hurt me or Jason."

"We just need to make sure-"

"Make sure of what?" Sarah was getting anxious and slightly pissed off.

"That he wasn't carrying anything, but it seems you are fine."

"Yeah, so let my dog go."

Bruce and Sarah walked out of the room and he lead her down the hallway to the west wing of the dilapidated mansion. He opened the door and there laying on the floor growling at Bruce. "Down boy, he is a good guy," Sarah said in a voice that Jenna Marbles, her favorite internet comedian, used on her dogs in her videos. She checked over her beloved dog for anything weird like tasers and whatnot and was happy they did nothing but water and feed the dog. Everything looked healthy and safe.

Bruce cleared his throat to get Sarah's attention, "I don't mean to interrupt, but we haven't left the estate since the outbreak. I am really concerned about Jason and maybe you could come with me to him to verify a few things."

"He is sick, but not that kind of sick."

He lead her wordlessly down a series of tall halls to a room that looked like it was a teenager's bedroom. There on the bed, in the gray night lights with the shadows of raindrops on a window pane, was Jason. There was another dark haired boy, looked a little like gypsy at the bedside with a cold compress. Bruce walked around her and grabbed her by the forearm. "I don't know what the virus looked like. We need details." His voice had a shade of frantic anxiety.

She sighed and walked towards Jason. "If he had the virus he would have had pussy bumps all over him." She gently pulled his closed eyelids open, "He would also be having cataract like eyes. He would also have been dead by now, actually starting to decompose if he was even exposed. The virus kills within a day of exposure by touch. This is just a persistent flu."

The younger man stopped what he was doing and inquired how she knew all this and lived to tell the tale. She responded with a small and powerful story. "I came across a town outside of Cleveland. A sick man crawled from the bushes and begged me to help him. He told me he and his family were also sick for the last twelve hours and that he needed help. He died shortly after."

_**Thanks to those who did review and add this to their whatever list. I will not disappoint you! However more reviews would be great. Tell your friends! R&R! **_


	3. Etudes

Bruce granted Sarah a stay at the manor for an indefinite time. No reason not to. Dick showed her to the many empty 'guest' rooms in the manor, but she settled for one facing the west end of the estate grounds. Sunrises for her were mundane and another sign to be on the move, something she was tired of. She could live here, not survive, but live. It seemed as if the Wayne family was prepped to live decades into the end of the world. Everything was either solar or wind powered as she discovered when she walked the grounds and the neglected gardens. From the the looks of the house it seemed livable, but dreary, but she imagined that at one point the house was a place of beautiful gothic grandeur. Damian wasn't too fond of her presence, but was welcoming of John. He showed the mutt kindness and said no harsh words to him. She too was weary of him, but Dick assured her that he was harmless, just protective, though he wouldn't admit it.

Jason got better the next day. The family had the gear to do that. It made Sarah suspicious. It was the kind of stuff that you would find at a hospital. Bruce said they hadn't left the place in years, and going to any medical facility, even now, was a bad idea. Everything was infected or was used in the failed effort to save the condemned millions.

She had been there for three days, rarely spoke to anyone, but she already knew so much about them. For one thing, none of them slept. They trained in a gymnasium-like wing of the house or read books all day. Bruce disappeared for hours, but Dick assured her that he was in the house. The house itself was massive and she got lost several times. It was hard to pinpoint landmarks when everything was covered with white sheets to keep the dust off. It was rather depressing to see the same was done in the garage with all the toy cars and motorbikes. She watched Jason very carefully. Sarah had grown attached to him now that she got to see what he was like when he wasn't half dead. He didn't say much, but when he did speak to her his words were weighted down with curses and brooding. This was a house full of brooding and male tension. She couldn't figure out why, but eventually she would.

It was raining one week after her arrival. Sarah had grown tired of reading and jogging on the treadmills while watching Dick swing around the high bar. She had the west side of the manor figured out and could no longer be lost. Today was the day to conquer the east wing.

There wasn't much of a difference from the other wing, but this side looked as if it hadn't been touched other than to covered all the furniture with sheets. She looked behind herself and saw that she was leaving tracks on the dusty floors. Going where no woman has gone before, she chided with herself. She quietly tiptoed from corridor to corridor, down and around the corners and along the big hall with walls adorned by family photos, some looking to be about forty years old, and the newest about three. She noticed Jason was only in a few, and there wasn't any recent pictures other than one of him when he looked to be about seventeen. No baby pictures. This was a strange family.

Most of the rooms were closed off and some had doors open just a crack, a devious invitation to enter a room she was sure she wasn't wanted in, but there was one door where the sunlight creeper through the door jam. Sarah let herself in.

Aside from the white this room was at one time a grand and beautiful place to be in the morning what with the big windows facing east and the warm wood walls. Sarah peeked under some of the sheets and the antique furniture and love seats that she had only seen in old movies as a kid or on a stage. Beneath the ugliest whites was beauty. There was an oddly shaped, large thing covered in the dark corner. It caught her attention and she wasted no time to uncover it; the shape was familiar to her.

Sarah tugged at one of the corners and pulled quickly and smiled at the sight of what she discovered, a grand piano. She had seen many of those in her time, she was a piano performance major before the outbreak at a conservatory out in California. This piano wasn't a standard black one like they had for stage performances. It was antique with beautiful carvings and shapes. The wood still had gloss and they keys were made of ivory, a rarity. Sarah opened the top to look inside at the strings and hammers, hoping that years of neglect and lack of playing had no negative effects on the instrument. She was relieved to only see one hammer missing, an easy fix if she had the tools. She kept the piano open and pulled out the cushioned bench. Sarah pulled off the zip up hoodie Dick offered her, extra clothing like that she felt restricted her movement. When she was in college and alone in her dorm with her keyboard she took to practicing naked. She delicately pressed down on the ivory middle C key, almost afraid of the noise it would make, but when she laid down a D major tri-tone she relaxed and began to play the first thing that came to her mind. Not the classical pieces she learned, not the jazz ensemble accompaniments, but an alternative chart from one of her favorite bands Anberlin, "The Unwinding Cable Car".

Damian Wayne had exceptional hearing. He could hear the bats in the cave during the day time hours go about their day from the other side of the grandfather clock in the study. He heard Sarah's Silverado before she drove it through the front gates when she arrived and warned his father about the intruder. What he heard that afternoon was something foreign. A piano playing. He had heard them hundreds of times before at gala's, movies, and in some of Dick's music, but never in Wayne Manor. Damian was sure they didn't have one in the house. If they did he was sure no one knew how to play.

The noise came from the East Wing of the house and he followed it and the footprints in the dust down the halls and corridors. It got louder when he reached the hall with all the photographs. Every door in this hall was closed up save one where the footprints kept going.

He peered through the door and saw Sarah playing with reverence on her face. He felt something odd as he listened to the music. He felt warm and at peace, and strangely, not angry or violent. His permanent scowl relaxed as he listened to the keys and pedals work together to create something beautiful. He watched her play and was perplexed the emotion in her face. It had been years since Damian Wayne saw a human being smile. He was perplexed by why. Why was a melodic noise bringing her so much joy? Why was something so simple as playing music having such an effect on her? She had seen the outside world where there was no beauty, only death, and there she was smiling.

He shook his head at the thought of beauty. There was none in this world even before the outbreak. Damian decided that Sarah was crazy and he needed to warn his father that the woman he allowed into his house was a psychopath.

Jason was caught up in the middle of reading "Nature" by Emerson in the lounge, quietly discussing in his mind why Emerson is the bane of his existence. He was sure those who loved his work probably died out in the woods and he was the epitome of hipsters. Too damn optimistic about the world. Hemingway got it right with "Bartelby the Scrivner".

Damian rushed past him to the direction of the study and the cave but not without Jason pulling at his side while keeping his page in the book. "Where do you think you're going, shorty?"

Damian snorted in annoyance, "Let me go, Todd."

"Not unless you tell me."

Damian stopped pulling and faced his black sheep of a brother. "That woman is playing the piano in the east wing. She is smiling while playing."

Jason put the book down, "I didn't know we had a piano. Did that happen after I died?"

Damian scowled, "You idiot, there is a crazy woman playing piano in the east wing and you are more concerned about there being a piano?"

_**I do not own anything WB or DC. R&R please! Tell your friends!**_


	4. Parts Needed

_**I do not own DC or WB. Leave a review.**_

"Father, you let a crazy woman in the house. Get rid of her!" shouted Damian down the passage into the cave. Bruce had taken the last few years to either brooding or contacting any member of the Justice League. It was always in silence with the exception of Dick's presence to pull him out of the abyss. Damian when he usually entered the cave walked silently. Today his stomping caught his father's attention. "Son, what are you ranting about?"

"That woman is in the great room in the east wing. She is playing the piano and smiling. There is nothing to smile about. I believe she has totally lost her mind." Bruce turned and looked at his son who was scowling under the low lights. "If she has found something that makes her look happy then she probably is. You should take some pointers from her."

Damian was infuriated by his father's response. "But how in the world, with everything that has happened is she allowed to be happy. She should be grieving and mourning about the death of the world."

"Damian, it has been two years. At some point you have to stop and move on. She isn't crazy, she has just moved on."

"It has been decades for you to stop mourning and here you are brooding since that night in the alley by the theater."

Bruce grabbed his son by the shirt collar and forced him up the stairs leading out of the cave, glaring at his son.

/ / / / / /

Damian wasn't thrilled with his father's response but his retort he knew was practically hitting below the belt. He had no regrets. He walked back to the great room to see that Sarah wasn't there, the piano was covered, and the curtains were closed. John moseyed up and licked his hands. Damian looked down on the mutt, "Where is your owner?" The dog trotted down the hall and out the door, which was open. Damian jogged to keep up with the dog but skidded to s stop before hitting the end of the grand stairs. Jason was coming from the side pulling his jacket on. "Where do you think you are going, Todd?"

Jason was caught off guard by the sound of the little assassin's voice. It carried through the halls hauntingly for a twelve year-old. "I am going into the city," he responded with an upward inflexion posing more as a question.

"Tt, for what? I doubt you have a date with anyone or any foe."

"Hey Brat, if you haven't noticed but we have a new tenant in the house and she doesn't have much other that survival gear. I don't think she would like to sharing Steph's old clothes or Dick's sweats anymore. She doesn't know the city that well and god only knows what destruction is out there that she would get stuck in."

"Let her go alone. We don't want her here."

Jason scoffed at the pre-teen's false accusation. "Unless daddy bats says so she is staying. She isn't doing any harm."

Damian was frustrated having to reiterate his argument that Sarah was not mentally sane and her behavior at the piano was. Jason didn't shout his next phrase, "Look, I don't know how to explain why she was doing what she was doing, this being happy thing you are so against. Go ask Dick. We are leaving. 'Should be back before sun down." Jason turned on his heel and left while Damian watched him climb into the driver's seat with Sarah and her dog in tow.

The son of the bat wasn't thrilled with anyone's answer that day. He wandered to the lower levels of the manor finding his older brother in the gym, swinging off the high bars trying to create a new trick to keep his mind busy. "Grayson, Jason and father have not been answering my question to a satisfactory level. You would have the answer, wouldn't you?"

Dick landed on the mat with a huff from exertion. "Depends on the question. What is it, Dami?"

"Sarah was playing the piano."

Dick raised as eyebrow at his little brother, "What could be so bad about that? At least it is being played and not just sitting there."

"She was happy. Look around the world, do you think she has a reason to be?"

Dick sighed and let the crook of his lips go up, "I guess it depends on what she was playing. If it was some kind of death march I would be concerned."

"Fool, you are not answering my question!"

Dick put a hand on his little brother, who wasn't so little anymore. "Let her be happy. It is about time someone did. Maybe she is genuinely happy and doesn't want to be depressed about this dead world we are living in. Music has the power to do that to people."

"Tt, you expect me to believe something as trivial as organized sound being created by hitting white keys would change someone's personality?"

Dick shrugged, "Yeah, I do."

Dick walked away heading for the showers feeling rather sorry for his youngest brother. Growing up with The Shadows obviously emotion wasn't something they emphasized learning, nor the arts from the tone of that conversation. Turning on the shower heads and letting the water engulf him he realized how long it was since he heard music in the manor; before Alfred died and the outbreak began he took to turning on Glenn Miller to pass the time as he worked and to tune out the constant newscasts on the radio and television. He thought it was funny how no one in the family knew how to play an instrument. They had all the time in the world and no one bothered. He decided that later that evening he was going to try.

/ / / / / /

Jason showed Sarah around the shell of ruins known previously as Gotham. He pointed out the landmarks that stood still while quietly weaving through the abandoned cars on the freeway. The mall was towards the outer edge of the city right off the exit to Metropolis. The parking lot was empty minus the few remnants of tents and one decaying body. Sarah let John out of the car first to sniff out the closed main doors. Everything was boarded and chained up, like the churches and public buildings every city. Any place where there could be an assembly of people was closed up in hopes of slowing down the epidemic, but it did nothing to stop the death. John darted back and wagged his tail in approval, ran over to the driver's side to tug on Jason's sleeve. Dogs made Jason nervous, especially with his past; he didn't get along so well with the strays roaming the streets of Crime Alley when he was searching for food. Sarah thought his reaction was cute. "He's taking a liking to you."

Jason huffed and nudged him down, taking the sledge hammer from the back seat, "Never been a big fan of dogs, but I will take them over rats any day." He worked on the door, slamming into the chains to break them free and the door in general to open. When he opened the door John jumped through, Jason held out his hand for Sarah, "After you." At least chivalry isn't dead, she chided to herself.

The place was spooky to be in. An empty mall was just like a dead temple; you know there should be activity in there, that's what you remember the most of it, and when no one is there, you feel so small and intrusive. The place was lit only by the natural skylight which had some holes in it allowing birds to nest and other critters to make their new homes. Animal feces were everywhere but considering what could be there it wasn't a big deal to them. They split up, Jason stood guard by the main door while John and Sarah went about the place finding clothing stores and other venues. She already had in mind where she wanted to get everything. American Eagle, Footlocker, Dick's, Victoria's Secret, Petland for John (the dog deserved some decent toys), FYE (Netflix never had anything she wanted to watch anyways and Pandora was useless now), but she had her eyes set on the music/instrument store. She broke into the back room to find the tools she would nee to pull a hammer out from the piano on display. There was a body there, but John didn't fret at it. Whoever it was ended his life with a pistol under his chin and a bottle of Jack in his hands. She carefully looked through the desk drawers and pulled out the tools she learned from her days at the conservatory that fixed pianos and pulled on the wires and other mechanisms. Carefully she worked on the display piano pulling out one of the high C hammers and a few other mechanisms that she figured that the antique piano back at the manor would need eventually. One of the pedals was pretty week and the wood needed some love. When she pulled out all the parts when went through the archives towards the back end of the store. Sarah needed some music to play and learn, pick up where she left off in her studies. She pulled out some pop charts, composition sheets, classical stuff, and then she picked up some methods books. At some point the Wayne family was going to hear her play and one of them would ask to learn to play, at least she hoped.

It was then she felt a surge of pain on the right side of her brain. Dammit, she thought. Migraine. She hadn't had one in a month. She thought they were going to be less frequent in her life but she was wrong. They usually started out small and light, just enough time for her prescription pain medication (that she stole) to kick in. She left it all behind at the manor. Sarah knew she was screwed. She went down the pathway to the Pharmacy a few stores down, breaking past any security barrier to get to the back where all the good stuff was. She had little time to do so before the pain would get from bad to worse. The kind of pain that crippled you and made you vomit was going to happen if she didn't act fast. She peered around all the shelves looking for eletriptan, hell vicodin sounded wonderful at that moment. John whimpered his concern for his owner. He stuck right by her side and wasn't going to move. Sarah found it and then realized she couldn't take it right there. All that was left was in heavy doses, the kind where you had to eat something with it or else your stomach was in a world of hurt, literally speaking. She snagged a couple containers of that and stumbled out of the store with a hand truck filled with her finds. She called for Jason who was still standing at the door. They loaded up the Silverado and drove back to the manor, Sarah keeping her eyes closed. Jason knew something was up but she assured him she was just tired. "If there was anything in that mall that had the infection on it we won't be going back," he said.

"There is no need. I just didn't sleep well last night and it is coming back to get me," she smiled. The last thing she wanted was for someone to get fussy about her. Her father got fussy every time she had a migraine. The last time he went out to find a local pharmacy that he could steal some pain relievers from, she worried if he would come back.

They got back to the manor and they gradually unloaded the vehicle bringing everything to her room. Jason watched her closely and John was attached to her heels. It was mid-afternoon and Sarah was ready to collapse. She closed the curtains and ate an apple she snagged from one of the trees outback where they parked the non-recreational cars. She didn't even bother to take a glass of water down with the large pills. She took off her boots and pants and settled into her bed with the covers over her head and John laying beside her providing additional warmth. She ususally was bothered by the constant silence of the manor, but right then she was grateful for it.

Now Sarah had to sit and wait for this pain to be over with, then sit through the shaking after recovery before she could get to work on fixing that missing hammer.

Migraines hurt like hell, but what she hated more than that pain was the lost time from sitting through it. There weren't a whole lot of other options.

_**I don't know if I like this chapter or not. It reminded me a lot of Rolan Emmerich films, you know those pointless scenes that have very little to do with the plot but are needed as filler to advance the plot just a little (usually this is because of a lack of decent writing). Leave a review and also leave me some ideas of classical or pop-y piano tunes that these boys should learn. "Clair de Lune" by DeBussy is already being considered as well as "The Portrait" by James Horner. AGAIN R&R!**_


	5. Clair de Lune

Sarah woke up and saw that it was dark outside; the only light in the room was coming from the moon. It was a full moon too. _ Figures_, she thought. John was snoozing at the foot of the bed while she turned and put her feet on the ground. The pain was gone, but her body still had some tremors. Migraines always left her shaky and weak, but she wasn't going to let that deter her from getting to work. It wasn't like she had to wake up early for anything. Jason must have brought all her finds up to her room when he realized she wasn't going to unload all her items having darted with her head in her hands. Everything she found was stacked in front of her wardrobe. From where she sat she could not see her bag from the music store. She dug through the bags in a desperate search hoping she would find the parts unharmed. They were not there. She quickly put her jeans back on and walked briskly to the east wing, to the place she dubbed 'the piano room'.

She opened the door to the room and saw the curtains were pulled letting in the bright moon light. On top of the piano was the little brown bag with the parts she needed and some sheet music. She pulled a tall lamp to the open piano and flipped the switch to provide the light she needed. The fix was quick but the re-tuning was anything but. It is a bitch to tune when you weren't born with perfect pitch or an automated tuner. Sarah was going to be making a lot of noise trying to find the right pitch. She looked at the clock and it read eleven forty-five. She felt bad knowing the ruckus would eventually wake at least one member of the Wayne family up, but it was only one. Bruce never slept, she noticed in the last few weeks. He was nowhere to be found in the evening. Dick also vanished, but Jason lingered in the manor either by the fireplace in the den or his room, playing with his weapons. Damian actually slept, but he was so far away from the piano room that she didn't think he would wake. She continued to play with the pitches until one in the morning, when the moon seemed to be at the highest, and casted its blue white glow along the ivory and ebony keys.

Sarah turned off the light and played a little on the keys. She warmed up only slightly realizing he hands were out of shape when reaching for the octaves. Sarah was very into playing the piano as it brought her some normalcy in this new world that she wished never existed. Music was her escape, it calmed her not-so-mentally stable father; it was something she was good at growing up in a neighborhood full of brutish boys. It seemed like a nice night like that night called for some Debussy. John trotted into the room and laid his head on her lap. This caught her by surprise but not as much as Jason's presence. "Oh, hey there."

Jason smiled at her, "I have heard you play better so I came up to see why this noise you were making."

Sarah sighed, "This piano was just missing parts and needed a few tuning adjustments. I should have said something, shouldn't I?"

Jason shrugged nonchalantly. He thought it was odd that his family, if you could call them that, took her in all these weeks ago and none of them bothered to get to know her. Everyone since they arrived kept their distance from each other emotionally and physically, but for them to do that was normal; it just seemed rude to include Sarah in the distance. She had done nothing wrong. He walked up to the piano and looked at what she had been working on. "Clair de Lune?" he asked.

"I know it seems really cheesy," she said sheepishly.

"I haven't heard it," he replied. Bruce didn't put as much emphasis when raising his robins on anything in the fine arts category of their education. That part was put on the back burner or replaced by the hours of training. Sarah's jaw dropped, "But everyone has heard of Clair de Lune. I blame Twilight on that one, but it is a classic. It is a beautiful piece. I played it in a lot of my recitals when I was in school."

"I just wasn't musically inclined as a kid." He thought about those kids he knew on the streets who came from good families but slipped into poverty. Those kids had some musical capability and would play for cash on the streets. They didn't have to turn to prostitution or stealing tires to survive. He thought about the kid who played cello outside a diner. That kid could play anything you asked and he thought it was really cool.

Sarah smiled at Jason, who she became fond of, and patted at a spot on the piano bench for him to sit down on. "It is never too late to learn. I taught an old lady for some extra money when I was away at the conservatory. It just takes some desire and time. I think you have both."

Jason sat down and looked at the keys with a blank expression. "Okay, so what do I do?" Sarah picked up his hands and asked him to relax them, to sit up straight, and drop his shoulders. She placed his hands individual fingers on the different keys. She got up and situated herself behind him laying her hands on top of his, pressing down until he hit the key hard enough to produce a sound. Slowly she guided him through the Debussy classic without the pedals for a few measures. She stopped and asked him, "What do you think?"

Jason sat there and looked at his hands on the keys. "I did that?"

"With a little help. That was how my mom taught me when I was little," she said. She got up and closed the piano for the night feeling still tired from the migraine earlier that day.

Jason wanted to know more about this girl who saved him from dying on the side of a road. "So where are you from, exactly?"

Sarah raised her eyebrow at him. It seemed like a trivial question. "Uh, Nebraska. Why?"

"Just seems odd that we have been under the same roof and we don't know jack shit about each other other than you play piano and I used to live here."

"Fair enough. Well I assume you are from here, so why did you leave? Were you looking for someone after the outbreak?"

Jason thought about the miles and different places he had been searching for Roy and Kory. All those places looked the same no matter where he went and he found no trace of them, but he wouldn't give up until he found them, even if it was a grave. "Yeah. You were too, weren't you?"

Sarah sighed remembering the months she spent searching for her school friends and her mother, hoping she still cared that her daughter was alright, even though she had left her and her mentally damaged father when she was young enough to understand her reasons. She nodded yes. Sarah felt the pain stab her in the heart thinking about her fruitless efforts in recovering what she thought was lost. "Mm."

"Did you ever find them?"

"No. You?"

He shook his head, no.

"What about them? I mean I never see Bruce around and Dick just vanishes along with him."  
"I can't really explain that. I think they should just give up. The people they are looking for are either dead or not in this world anymore. Could you blame them though?"

Sarah was slightly confused by what he said. What did he really mean when he said that they weren't in this world anymore? "What do you mean?"

Jason realized what he said and tried to brush it off as just him talking gibberish. Nothing to worry about. He left the room leaving Sarah with more questions about this family she had taken residence in. John perked up and stood looking down at the window attentively. She went to pull him down from the window sill so his toe nails wouldn't scratch the mahogany. When she realized what he was looking at. Down on an off road path zoomed out the Batmobile and a little blue motorbike following after him. "Shit," she gasped.

_**Sorry about the hiatus. College and band took over my life again. This may seem much shorter and it is probably really evident that I didn't bother to edit it or send it to a beta. Thanks for hanging in there with me. I think I can devote time to this again. Leave some words down in the box below!**_


	6. Sometime Around Midnight

"Shit," she gasped. The Batman was still around. There was a glimmer of hope too when she saw Nightwing's motorcycle charge after him too. She wanted to know more and despite feeling sleepy she called John out to investigate with her and track where The Batman came from. They circled around the manor until she found the window that she looked down from and began tracking. Her father taught her everything he knew until he felt some of the effects of his post-traumatic stress set in. Sarah knew how to shoot heavy artillery, track, hunt, and learned a few stealth strategies along with her academic studies. She followed the off-road path backwards to where ever the tracks ended with a small flashlight in hand and her jacket pulled tightly around her to counter the late November cold. Sarah followed the bat tracks in the moonlight deep into the wooded areas of the estate that she did not explore yet. The farther in and away from the manor she went in the more skeptical she was about the location of the The Batman's headquarters. The big guy and his birds had some of the best high tech gear in the world to warrant them the title of World's Greatest Detective, where on earth would he be doing hiding out in the middle of the thickets?

Suddenly she came to a fork in the road, on way turning back sharply and one way heading towards more forest. Tracks came from both ends. Sarah decided this little mission needed to be put to rest. Maybe she was seeing what she wanted to believe. Her mind was still exhausted from the migraine and she was in general very tired. Sarah took the sharp turn seeing that Wayne Manor was in the distance and slowly walked back in the cold. It was strange however that tracks from the Batmobile were coming from this direction. The Batman was driving by Bruce's place for years and he knew nothing about it, she thought. Sarah picked up her pace and followed the path with more vigilance, john trotting next to her, and followed through the thickets. The dirt path became concrete the farther she went, which to her was rather peculiar. She began running feeling an unnecessary urgency, but she didn't care. She was going to find out who The Batman was. She was going to be the last person to ever know.

About forty feet later she came to a rocky wall. The road ran right into it without any high colored traffic markers. Someone had put that there and on purpose without the city knowing, and they covered their track fairly well from any other bystander. She flipped on her flashlight and pointed at the wall looking for anything unusual. There were small discreet crevices in the wall that no one who would take the time to look would notice. It was almost a perfect square big enough to fit some military vehicle and when she looked into the crevice she could see some metal bearings. "Shit," she had stumbled upon the entrance of the Batcave. She had gone where no one she knew of had gone or dared to go. John was behind her a few feet sniffing a particular tree. When Sarah turned around she shooed him away; The Batman would have figured out she was there if her dog's traces were anywhere near the cave's entrance.

Sarah felt the need to run away. She felt like she was in danger now. She had heard stories about how The Batman was a violent creature of the night. She was intruding on his territory and she could get into a whole lot of trouble for that. Sarah ran back tracking her way to the manor. She came to the fork in the road and ran through the thickets, branches and shrubs swiping her in the face and ripping at her clothes. The moon light was covered through the opaque tree cover making Sarah run blind and disoriented.

She came to a clearing. All she could make out in the darkness was her breath and five stones in a single row next to each other. She fumbled around for her flashlight and looked around seeing the five stones, two older ones, two newer ones, and one smaller one. Sarah realized that these were graves. Two belonged to Tom and Mary Wayne. The newer ones belonged to a Tim Drake and an Alfred Pennyworth. Someone had been taking care of them, trimming around them and pulling out any invasive plants from distorting their views. There was one head stone that didn't get the same kind of care. It was smaller and was partially sunk into the ground. She pulled the brush away and wiped away the dirt and grime from the name plate. It read Jason Todd. Sarah lost her breath and fell to her knees, trying to grasp the concept that the guy she saved from the side of the road and was walking around the manor was dead. She really had to be dreaming, there was no way this was real. This was a dream, she thought. I'm in bed and John is curled up next to me.

John started barking, but by the time Sarah turned back to try to see what he was making a fuss about she was met with a blunt object hitting her head and she fell into a peaceful abyss.

/ / / / / / / / / / / /

Damian watched her all through the night as soon as she walked out the manor. He knew his father and Dick were out and she was probably doing some investigation. No one went to the east wing late at night if they were a guest because the path the Batmobile took ran under all the windows. He followed her, staying out of hearing and sight range. She reacted so differently than he expected which made keeping up with her hysterical running tricky. He froze when he saw he kneeling in front of Jason's former grave. He had to make sure she didn't remember any of this. He had to get her back in the house before his father came back. John wasn't going to make it easy either.

He didn't have a whole lot of options other than carrying her back to the manor, but thankfully his fourteen year-old frame could easily carry this slender girl, but not without cursing her insolence. He couldn't stand her.

Damian took the quickest way he knew back to the estate through the cave, pulling on the right branch on the oak tree to the far left of the batcave's entrance. It was a quick little walk up to the clock entrance but it would have been quicker if he hadn't had to readjust Sarah's limp body every few steps. He was glad she didn't stir from that at all, he would have rather dragged her to her room, but didn't want to take the chance of her seeing the Batcave. He was going to hold onto whatever normalcy he could, including the secret of Batman and his birds. John stuck by his side whining every so often. He was just passing the computer bays when he heard the hum of the Batmobile's engine from a short distance and the buzz of Nightwing's bike. Damian was going to be in trouble, but he knew he could justify what he was doing.

The car parked and Nightwing hopped off his bike. Bruce emerged from the car looking defeated as he had been every other night for the last year and a half with his cowl pulled off. Dick pulled off his helmet looking exhausted and in a bad mood. Seeing Sarah in Damian's arms unconscious was going to punctuate the moment quite well. Bruce crawled out from the car. "Damian, what did you do?" he growled.

Damian turned away from his father and continued up the stair case to Sarah's room wordlessly.

"Damian, I demand an answer."

"She found out!" he shouted angrily.

Dick quickly followed up behind his youngest brother and took Sarah out of his arms. "What do you mean, little D?"

"She found the outside cave entrance, you nitwit!"

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew eventually they were going to have tell Sarah about their other lives. He just hoped it wasn't going to go like this. She was a good kid, she had done nothing wrong except in Damian's eyes. "Son, it doesn't matter."

"No, it does!"

"Damian-"

"She was going to find out and the secret was going to be out. How do you know if you can trust her?"

"You hitting her in the head isn't going to help."

Damian Wayne was tired of being wrong all the time in his father's eyes. He stomped off and let out a small angry cry as he left the cave. Bruce peeled of the suit and quickly dressed in his house clothes. He wanted to check on Sarah but found that Dick, still in his Nightwing persona, had it all taken care of and John was curled up at her feet. He closed the door behind him and whispered, "Just a bump on the head but nothing to worry about."

"Good."

"So do you, me, or Jason tell her?"

"We all will later. We need to tell her gently and not let her be frightened about it."

"What about Damian? I think his problem is trying to find a new normal at the end of the world and Sarah's presence isn't helping."

"I think we all need a new normal but I will not turn her out into the wasteland. He will face some consequences for what he did, I just don't know what."

_**I don't own these guys, except for Sarah and John. **_

_**Be one of the cool kids and leave some words in the box below.**_


	7. Reality

_Sarah couldn't stop running. The plague was upon her, now airborne, and she ran to get away from it. She didn't know where to go or where to hide. The forest sounded like a good idea. It was the forest around her father's shelter. She knew it well, but suddenly it all changed. It was summer, and then the leaves were gone and the grasses were dead. The wind went from warm and humid to blistering cold. She kept running in the strange forest that changed every time she turned around. She didn't know if she was still running form the plague or going in circles. All Sarah knew was that she was running._

_Out of nowhere she came the mouth of a large cave. She walked right in. Its shelter, better than nothing, she thought. Sarah walked in constantly spinning on her heals to watch her behind. No one and nothing was going to get her. She had to survive. She went on to explore the cave's depths. The cave seemed to go on forever. There was no life there. Just an empty darkness._

_There was a voice. At first Sarah thought it was just her hysteria playing tricks on her, but the voice grew louder. She recognized it almost instantly. She hadn't heard it in years. The last time she heard her mother's voice it ringed with disapproval as she left her and her father, damaged from his tour in Iraq, behind. "You should have left with me." "You had potential." "You destroyed your future." "Come back to me, Sarah Louise." The voices came from all different directions. No, you're not here, Sarah mumbled. The voices rang and they grew louder until it nearly deafened her. The cave began to spin and she fell to her knees with her hands covering her ears. "STOP IT! You're wrong. YOU LEFT US!"_

_The voices stopped. Her head stopped spinning and the ground stopped moving. Sarah looked up to get her bearings on the cave around her, but she wasn't in the cave now. She was in her home in Nebraska, kneeling in the middle of kitchen. Her home looked a lot like the day when she was fifteen and her parents had their last big fight. She could hear them yelling at each other by the front door landing. She knew that argument, it was about her. It was about whether her father, damaged and paranoid after returning to the states from active frontline duty, could care and nurture her talent in music, or care for a teen in general. Sarah had more faith in her father, but she barely knew him. He had spent most of his time away in the military and her mother had grown resentful of him. Sarah walked into the room, "You guys don't need to fight. I will stand by Dad. Mom, I love you, but I need he needs us." Sarah's voice was much stronger than it was when she was younger. She had done this before and had refined the technique per say. He mother just stood in the doorway looking down at her in disappointment "Sarah, you can be somebody. I won't let you make the same mistake I did," she growled. And then she disappeared._

_Sarah turned to her father ready to embrace him in a father-daughter hug. He was a person who would never betray her. She felt his warm fatherly embrace and never wanted to let go. She squeezed him tighter and tighter until she felt his body fall. She looked up at him and saw his head fall back limply. Sarah laid his body down gently, but felt frantic. Her father never passed out like this ever. She turned his face towards him and jumped back a few feet in fright. Sarah saw his face was covered in the same pussy bump the rest of the world had. They didn't live to see them go away. Her father raised a hand to her, "Stay with me, Sarah." His voice was raspy at a whisper. She turned to look at her mother behind her, "Help me!"_

"_You made a mistake," she said. Her mother disappeared into thin air right before her eyes. Sarah wanted to cry. She was doomed to die, but she had faint hope. The symptoms of the virus took at least two hours to surface on the skin. She turned to look at her father, but he was gone. The house was dark now. She could hear someone outside trying to seal the door and windows. Sarah wanted to get out. She banged on the door screaming to be let out. She gave up when she looked at her fist and saw the pussy bumps forming on her hand rapidly. She could feel them form creeping up from her feet and hands, inching by the second, itching and seeping, until little bumps formed around her face._

Sarah jolted awake. She rolled up her sleeves, threw the covers off her, and felt her face for any bumps. Her breathing slowed when and she comforted herself, "It was just a dream." No, a nightmare, she chided. She swung her legs over and made her way to the adjoining bathroom, but she felt sore. She felt filthy and sweaty and shower seemed to be the solution. As she stripped she noticed things that weren't there before. The last night was a blur. In the mirror she saw a bruise forming on her forehead and faint scratches. The bruise worried her. That wasn't there the night before when she had a nice talk with Jason. She dismissed it as a possible badge of honor from her nightmare. She had a history when she was little or rolling off the bed, it wouldn't surprise if she did last night.

After her shower she wrapped a towel around her as she stepped out into the steam. A black figure stood by the door and she jumped with a scream.

It was Damian with his usual scowl on his face. "What do you want?" she asked. "Why are you here? How the hell did you get in here?" Sarah wrapped the towel around her tight and began to usher Damian out. "I have seen plenty of nude women in my line of work. You have nothing to hide," he snarled.

She pushed him out and she stepped back into her bathroom ready to shut the door on him, "It is a matter of principle, now get out!"

Sarah slammed the door on his face. She put on her clean clothes and pulled her wet hair into a braid. She looked at her other clothes from the previous night that were strewn across the floor. There was dirt on her knees and grass stains, some little twigs, and tears in her jeans. She had to have done something that night before. She just couldn't remember. She left the bathroom and saw three dark haired men standing in her room. This sight was a rarity. She was either in trouble or she was in trouble. "I swear I didn't do anything," she said, that I remember, she thought.

Bruce spoke first, "You did, but you are not in trouble."

"If it is about the piano in the east wing I won't touch it anymore."

"It isn't even about that," Jason said.

"Follow us," Dick commanded.

Sarah did just as she was told with Damian stalking her every move behind her. That kid gave her the creeps. The things he said and did were not normal for any fourteen year-old boy.

What was normal for this family?

_**It is a shorter chapter than normal, but the next one will be a little bigger and heavier. I don't see this story having an end since it is the end of the world and there is infinite time to develop this sucker. I know it is a Sarah-centric chapter but I like this OC a lot, like Lorelei in my other stuff. The rest of the characters will get their time to shine. Leave a review please **___


	8. Reminder

"Follow us," he commanded. Bruce was leading a single-file line across the manor into his study on the far side of the west wing. Jason was directly behind him, Dick at Sarah's side and Damian lurking at the end. When they entered the study all was silent and the expressions on all the boys' faces were stern and serious. Sarah worried a bit about the situation she was in. Bruce stopped in front of a large grandfather clock, moved the clock hands, opened the whole front letting in a slightly musty draft and walked into the darkness. Jason followed Bruce more casually. Dick began walking but stopped only to pull Sarah by the hand as she was reluctant to follow. Damian stalking behind didn't help.

She couldn't see a damn thing and relied heavily on Dick to guide her down what she felt was an endless staircase. "The last step is a doozy," murmured Dick. Sarah was hyper alert of her surroundings. The farther they went into what she assumed was a catacomb a glowing light showed the way. She had no idea what to expect. Was this going to be a ritualistic killing? It was possible in her mind since she was still a virgin.

The light grew brighter until lights flipped on. She focused her eyes on what was in front of her and her jaw dropped at the sight. The massive computer banks, the Batmobile, Nightwing's motorcycle, all the costumes, weaponry, and the Batwing were just a few things that caught her stunned focus. She began to piece it all together and hoped in vain that these guys were just fanboys on steroids. The real Batman and his clan would never allow anyone to know their real identities. She thought really hard to the night before when she looked down from the window and saw the Batmobile go out into the city. This was the real deal. She was living with the Batclan. Sarah had so many questions and so many fears.

Bruce flipped on a few more lights which exposed the rest of the large cave. A few of the other monitors flickered back to life and what she assumed was the hum of a vent. Everyone was motionless except for Sarah. She was looking all around in bewilderment. She had been living with these guys for almost two months and never suspected them of holding this big of a secret. Bruce looked over one computer which looking like it was scanning through a bunch of files at a constant rate. His face, she realized, had been stuck in a grimace since the day she arrived. Damian lurked in the darkness, Jason by a separate transparent compartment that held a Robin costume, Dick only turned to face Sarah, "We should've told you a while ago, but some habits die hard."

Sarah was still stunned. "You mean you guys really are the Batclan? I wasn't going crazy?"

Damian grumbled, "I say you are."

"Damian, knock it off," Bruce spat. "Yes, this is what is left of us."

Sarah needed more information before she could finish putting the pieces together. "But there are three of you and six costumes. One of which is totally alone from the rest. What happened to the rest of you?"

Bruce was silent, but Dick spoke. "Batgirl and Red Robin are…no longer with us. Her location is unknown but we can assume that she didn't not survive the first exposure." Dick's voice was heavy with years of grief.

"What of Red Robin?" No one answered. "Who were these people?"

"Barbara Gordon was Batgirl and my son, Tim Drake-Wayne, was Red Robin," Bruce said.

"I'm so sorry."

Silence.

Dick spoke, "Damian is the current Robin as I am Nightwing and Bruce is Batman. We just haven't been making very many appearances due to the situation the world has been put in, except for The Batman."

Sarah turned to Jason, "What about you? Did you not join in the game?"

Jason turned sharply away from the costume. "Like hell I did," he snarled. "I was the second Robin, Batman's greatest failure."

"What does that even mean?"

Jason was glared at Bruce, "Well why don't you tell her, Bruce. Tell her about how you were too late to save me and how I became your enemy."

Bruce shook his head, "Not now, Jason."

Jason was angry now, "Fine. We got all the time in the world now. That is if you are willing to part from your search databases for a few minutes to face reality."

"What are you looking for?" Sarah asked.

Bruce said nothing. His silence bothered her. He just told her their biggest secret and he keeps acting like he is protecting another. What was the point? Dick answered for him, "He is looking for the rest of the Justice League. When the first outbreak occurred almost all the alien members fled from the Planet. The meta-humans vanished and the others went missing, including Green Arrow. All the bad guys are either dead or fled the planet. Everyone in Arkham and the prisons as we have discovered all died either from the virus or the elements."

"But the League had The Watchtower. No one has communicated with it?"

"No one is up there."

"So all the heros, Superman and Wonderwoman, are gone?"

"I just hope we are wrong."

Jason snarled, "Look around you, Golden Boy. You haven't been able to find anyone in the last two years. No one is out there. Civilization has died. I was out there, I know."

"Says the guy who took off looking for the rest of The Red Hood and the Outlaws," Damian quipped.

"Yes, I went out on a fruitless mission, but at least I knew when to call it quits. Something the three of you refuse to accept. Everyone is gone you idiot. Stop wasting your time, no matter how much of it you have to dispose."

Damian's scowl faded away into the look of question. He refused to believe what Jason had to say but he knew it was true. They had been looking all over for survivors, their friends, The League and they found no one. They even went into Arkham and found it lost to the virus. Not bad in their point of view but they lost their main line of work. Damian and Bruce went out a few times a week in vain hope, Dick would sometimes take his youngest brother's place, but the results were constant, and Bruce pushed further in the searches. All the times he watched his father stare at the computers for hours he had faith that they would find something or a lead, now with this argument by Jason he realized he was watching a someone who was too stupid to realize he was hitting a dead end. Everything in his world was just now starting to shatter.

"All of you need to face some hard truths about what is really out there. Either we are the last of the human race or we got left behind. Time to face it."

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

After that familial meltdown Dick decided it was a good time to go for a walk to blow off some steam. There was a decent inch of snow on the ground and it was still quietly falling from the grey sky. He knew that the confrontation and exposing their biggest secret was going to happen, he just pictured it going smoother. He hated seeing Bruce so defeated, it wasn't normal, and it was scary. The patriarch was their rock and it was starting to crumble.

He walked in silence for a while until he came upon small footprints. He followed them until he reached the family cemetery and saw Sarah standing over the graves of his family members.

She was a pretty picture to him, everything she wore, even the winter clothing, fitted her tightly showing all of her best features off to the world without an audience. Her long hair caught the snow flakes and judging by the amount, she had been standing there for a while.

"Hey," he muttered. It was enough to get her attention.

Sarah turned to acknowledge him.

"I'm sorry about what happened in there."

"No need to apologize really."

"We should have told you sooner."

"I don't think it would have mattered, but for a while when I first saw you two drive off the other night I was scared that you would know I knew and…you know, get rid of the liability."

"I don't think that's a problem these days. If it was a different time, we would have just kept an eye on you." Sarah smiled at the thought. "Good to know." They stood their silent staring at the headstones. Jason's stone had Sarah's full attention. She liked Dick, but she knew she would get more of her questions answered through Jason. He seemed more honest about his family.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" Dick asked concerned about Sarah and how she was reacting on the inside to all these revelations.

"I think Jason is wrong," she said quietly.

That caught Dick off guard. "Could you be a little bit more specific?"

"When he said there was no one out there he was wrong. If no one was out there his body would have been decomposing on the side of the road where I found him."

_**I don't like this chapter, but I promise the next one will be better. I felt like we needed some confrontation of interests but I just didn't know how to do it. This also went without any editing so bear with me. Leave a review in the box below. Much love!**_


	9. Shots and Clays

Ever since the confrontation in the cave Jason remained distant from everyone in the manor. He felt his angst levels rise and decided, for the better of Sarah not overhearing a nasty fight, to blow it off with a lot of time in the gym when Dick or the demon spawn wasn't in there. The snow had finally ceased falling and the sun was shining brightly through all the windows on the east wing. He could hear Sarah playing some Chopin and could hear all the mistakes she was making. She had said once Chopin, back in her conservatory days, was the hardest thing for her to play all the way through making less than five mistakes.

He peered through the door and saw her running her fingers through her hair in frustration, groaning and stressed. Jason still felt the need to blow steam off and decided that he should have Sarah join him. He just hoped his idea would work for her and she wasn't afraid of firearms.

/ / / /

"Pull!"

Sarah launched a clay pigeon up in the air, far and high hoping that it will be the one Jason finally misses. They made a deal where they would switch turns launching and shooting he shot gun when either of them missed their target.

Bam!

Sarah jumped up and down when she watched through binoculars the bright orange clay fall to the ground still intact. "Hand it over!" Jason grumbled reluctantly handed her the shotgun and exchanged places.

The two spent the afternoon outside while the weather was clear and pleasant. Jason loaded a clay into the thrower adding to their sardonic snark fest. Sarah who had been quiet and removed from the boys club let out her sassy side. "I bet you can't get the three in a row," Jason smirked. Sarah cocked an eyebrow at him, "Why, because I'm a girl?" she asked whilst loading shot gun shells. "Pull!"

Jason threw it as hard and high as he could and watched Sarah closely as she aimed at the orange disk in the distance. It was a pretty sight for him, dressed in boots with a thick jacket, aviators with her hair pulled back.

Bam!

He was defeated. "Lucky shot."

"Quit your bitchin'," she chuckled. "Pull!"

Bam!

Jason watched the clay shatter in the air. "Geez. Where does a girl like you learn to shoot?"

Sarah spoke as she loaded more shells, "Dad was in the army, grew up in a neighborhood fairly male dominated, and it was something he taught me after the outbreak when we retreated to Michigan's thumb. Out in the woods where no one would find us. Had to hunt a little bit for meat." She closed the gun. "Pull!"

Bam.

"Alright you got three in a row. Hand it over."

Sarah held the gun farther from him as a taunt. "Not part of the deal."

"You're a tough chick, aren't you?" he snickered.

"Not like I had much of a choice." And cocked the shot gun. "Pull!"

Jason launched another clay into the air.

Bam.

/ / / / / / / /

The sun was starting to set when they decided to call it quits. The recreational ammo was getting low and so were the targets. They were walking back, Jason with the gun in hand. The two used the long walk to get to know each other. "So you were the second Robin? The one that died and then came back as the Red Hood? That's pretty cool," Sarah mused.

Jason shook his head. "No, not really. Being killed was one thing. Coming back was a different kind of hell. My death was never avenged and…its almost too complicated for me to think about. My second life is worse than my first only by a few factors."

He told her the stories of the clan. He told him his version of Dick's past and Robin's origins, his time under the Wayne roof, Tim's story and Red Robin, all the Batgirls, their beloved Alfred, Damian's place in the evil scheme of life, but mentioned very little of Bruce. Sarah didn't question his disdain for his former mentor. They both agreed that the loss of Alfred was unfair. "I would loved to have met him," she said.

Jason nodded, "He was pretty awesome."

"Okay so Dick was the offspring of gypsy circus freaks, Tim had a semi-normal life, Bruce is the rich kid with issues, and Damian was raised by assassins. What about you?"

"That is also a long story."

"Well we have a long walk."

He sighed and stopped to face her. "I was a street rat. My mother overdosed on her recreational poison of choice, dad was consistently out of the picture until he got himself killed, I was selling myself to survive and sometimes I stole tires. One night I tried to steal the tires from the Batmobile and the rest is history."

Sarah felt bad for this guy. She thought she had a crummy life, but when she heard Jason's she thought hers was heaven. "I'm sorry, Jason."

Jason began walking again. "Alright you have to spill your life's story. Its only fair."

"You don't want to hear it."

"A deal's a deal."

She shrugged and kept her eyes forward. "Well I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. Dad was in the military so he was overseas a lot. He met my mom right before he shipped out. She was in the show business. He and his family went to see West Side Story where she played Maria and he fell in love with her. She found out she was pregnant with me a month later and they got married…because of me. Dad went off and she grew resentful of him since he got to do what he wanted with his life but she had to stop hers. She was the one who trained me in music. She taught me how to sing and how to play, but she was so damn hypercritical about my voice that I gave it up and focused totally on piano. Dad came back after being hurt when I was thirteen and there was a huge fallout. Mom wanted me to follow her so she could get me and her back on stage, but dad was so broken I couldn't leave him. I knew when he first saw me that year he really did love me unconditionally. Mom loved me because she had to. I chose to stay with him."

"So you gave it all up?"

"Dad was all for me playing. It made the house seem less empty. But a year or so before the outbreak he started acting weird and started prepping for the end of the world. Some folks said he had some PTSD, but he seemed fine to me. I went off to college and that was when the outbreak began. He drove all the way out to California to get me out of San Francisco and into Michigan. He went out one day long after the outbreak and….he never came back."

Jason was looking down as he walked. Sarah hoped she didn't lose his attention. They both had fairly depressing stories. "You want the cliffnotes?" she asked sarcastically.

/ / / / / / / / / /

The evening was still young and the two were bored. Dick joined in them in the den just staring at each other. Jason perked up when his older brother sat down. "Does Bruce still have the stash?"

Dick looked at his younger brother quizzically. "Uh, why?"

"Well we have nothing to do. Booze always has a cure for that."

"You have a that Disney fuck up, whats is called, um, Hercules?" Sarah asked.

"Why?" The two boys asked in unison.

"Get some booze I'm going to teach you guys a game!"

/ / / / / /

Dick brought more than half of the liquor cabinet's contents, three wine, shot, and pilsner glasses and set them on the large ottoman. Jason hunted down the movie. Sarah brought in all other provisions like a trash can, bread products, and a few pitchers of water. The chances of NOT having a hangover were thin, but these items would prevent it from becoming a nasty situation. Dick asked, "So why this movie?"

"Because it is by far Disney's failure in parody. The music doesn't make that much sense and for a change the female lead is far more developed than the male, which is saying a lot because he isn't. There was a lot of sense that wasn't being made and logic being ignored in the plot," she stated matter of factly.

Jason walked into the room, "So what are the rules?"

"Well you take shots for the plot holes, a big swig of whiskey for a musical number, flaws in its own story logic, and when a celebrity voice is recognized. With vodka you take a drink when a sidekick laughs at a bad guy. Anything with villains is with wine so you take a sip when he screams 'What!?', butt humor, shooting star, and when you spot another movie reference. With beer you take drinks for puns, whenever they mention those silly planets aligning, Hades flames up, when WONDER applies to anything IN the movie so Dick doesn't get totally shit face, Hercules does something clumsy, Yiddish words, Phil confuses his word count, and when the fat muse does something funny."

/ / / / / / /

Speeches were slurring, vision was spinning, and coordination was fading.

"Oh. God. The movie ain't even half way over yet?!"

"Keeping drinking! Its not over until the plot explodes."

"What the hell does that even mean?"

"You know when he takes that tornado titan thingy and throws it into space."

"Can we modify the….."

"Game?"

"Yeah!"

"No no no no no no no, oh aren't we supposed to drink to that long drawn out screaming NOOOOOOOOOOO!?"

"Lets not. I will bend that rule."

"Dammit another plothole."

They all take a shot. They squinted and made horrible noises that followed a strong shot.

"Which one?"

"No I mean song."

"Jason, they're aren't even singing."

"They just said wonder!"

"FUCK!"

"Ok, someone pause this movie."

Dick fumbled with the remote until he managed to find the right button. "We need some bread and water."

After a moment and standing and falling down the movie was playing again.

"Fuck this guy so soo soo generic. He is too…."

"Nice?"

"No a dumbass."

…..

…..

/ / / / / /

Bruce emerged from the cave and walked past the den. The strong smell of alcohol permeated the air. He had to go investigate it. He was shaking his head at the sight of Dick passed out of the floor with his shirt half way on and a bruise forming on his arm. Jason and Sarah were on top of each other, him snoring and her groaning. One by one he hauled them to their respective rooms and laid them on their sides. He planned to check on them every so often to make sure they didn't die from alcohol poisoning. Judging by the mess they had made in the den they will wish they were dead in the morning.

_**I don't own these guys. I also don't own the drinking game. That belongs to Nostalgia Chick (check out her blogs and reviews on Channel Awesome or ThatGuyWithTheGlasses). I will be going on a little hiatus again. Big paper due soon. Be awesome and leave a comment below!**_


	10. Swing Life Away

February had finally come but not without the frigid weeks of constant rain. Everything was soaked. The snow was gone and every morning they woke up to the estate looking like a swamp. Sarah was going stir crazy from being inside with nothing to do. The three young adults of drinking age had cleared out the stock of recreational beverages due to their movie themed drinking games. Sarah couldn't play the piano and hadn't in weeks since the rain begun. The muffler felt had worn out as she discovered. No one dared to go drive through the mess. At the rate it was raining, Bruce rationalized, places would be flooded. Even the Batman and his Robin didn't dare to go out. Nightwing hung up his costume for good.

Without the piano Sarah was irritable. Playing was like therapy for her. Dick suggested at one point that she come to the gym more often. It wasn't like she had much of a choice. He began to teach some acrobatics with the uneven bars but it changed nothing. She thought having Damian teach her some of his combat skills, to better understand the strange teenager, would take off some of the edge. All that did was make her look dumb with bruises and her ass on the ground. Jason warned her.

Sarah just wanted to go into the city of ruins and back to the mall to take a display piano for parts. No one was willing to brave the elements. If their Gotham technologies were working it would have been a different story, but the only thing that was working was the JL computers linked up to the Watchtower, but the Watchtower link was down. "It isn't like we have a batplan to go out there with."

On the first day of March they welcomed the sun. The sky was clear at last and the birds were singing. John was scratching at the back kitchen door whining to be let out to run. Damian happily opened the door watching the mutt bolt after a rabbit. Dick walked in the kitchen and opened the massive pantry and grimaced.

They had plenty of food and decided to act upon Sarah's suggestion to plant some vegetables when the ground dried up and the weather warmed, but he, ever since they took in Sarah, closely watched the food supply with a wary eye. He knew they were going to have to go into the city and scavenge, but he didn't think it would be this soon. He figured everything, after Tim and Alfred died, the supplies would last five years before they would have to act, not two and a half. He also figured they would find people living in a community that wasn't touched by the virus.

Dick had to make a choice (because Bruce showed no ability to do so). He had no idea what the city looked like after all those weeks of heavy rain but he didn't want to take a chance with weather being so unpredictable. It was the east coast after all. He sat down and began to make a mental list. He figured he would have to ask Jason and Sarah to help him out. He wanted to take two vehicles down to the city to either load up completely or as a safety provision if either were to get land locked. Dick figured if the mall wasn't underwater, that Sarah would end up there looking for piano parts. She was getting a horrible case of cabin fever. They all were, but they all had outlets in the manor to channel it, she didn't.

/ / / / / / / / / / / /

They traveled in a mini convoy through the dirty streets of Gotham. John happily stuck his head out the window as Jason drove Sarah's Silverado. She elected to stay with Jason. She couldn't figure out why she had such an attachment to him since she found him on the side of the road. Of all the guys Sarah knew, Jason wasn't her type, but maybe that was why she liked him. He was different.

They drove around the city watchful of the lower streets for high water levels. They were relieved to see that it wasn't as bad as they thought it would have been. Dick elected to scavenge any of the stores on the North side; Jason took the opposite with Sarah. The first place they hit was the mall. She went straight to work with John by her side watching curiously as she carefully pulled a muffler felt in decent condition out of a display piano. When she finished she caught up with Jason outside who was siphoning gasoline from an abandoned car into the Silverado. The plan was after she got her parts was to scavenge for any food supplies but Jason had other ideas that involved the higher, former wealthier, parts of the city.

Sarah protested whenever Jason and John went into small penthouses and looted them. She stood outside the vehicle with her arms crossed. She knew there was no logical harm in it, but she didn't care. "It's stealing from the dead," she said. No guilt trip she set on him worked. The only time she approved of his looting was when she emerged with a small blue dress, satin with gems sewn into them, for her. There was no point in dressing up, but she could only dream.

They drove by Wayne Tower. It was the only place she recognized from the past when she first drove through the city to find Wayne Manor with a very ill Jason Todd in tow. She was curious what was really in there now what she knew that Bruce Wayne was really The Batman. She had to be careful about how she worded her requests to learn more about the family after the last blow out in the cave. "Any chance you guys have stuff up in the tower that would be used in the manor?" Jason stopped the vehicle and looked at her sternly. "I mean there is no point in letting it go to waste."

Jason opened the door and let John out to sniff out the entrance. It was clear. Jason huffed, "You do realize that is up near eighty stories before you even reach the bottom floor of the penthouse right?"

Sarah realized that was an impossible feat to accomplish. Not totally impossible but it seemed like it. "I'm sure I can jerry rig some chords to get a charge and get the elevator working."

Jason shook his head, "And the likely hood of it being safe is?"

Sarah knew her logic was defeated. All she wanted was to see what was up there and possible get a better view of Gotham. There was so much of it they didn't explore. She was sure Jason wanted to see from above what the city had become. Dick, Bruce and Damian already had in their useless night personas, but Jason never joined them.

Jason pulled something out of his jacket pocket. A grapple gun. "I didn't think I would need it today but you can never shake off old Batfamily habits."

Jason sent John to sniff out a neighboring building that was only twenty-stories high. After gaining the canine's approval he began to pull off the board from that blocked the door. Sarah was confused as to what he was doing. "What do you think you're doing?"

Jason kicked the door open, "You want to see Wayne Tower right?"

"Yeah, but that's not Wayne Tower."

"Yeah well this thing in my hand is only good for up to sixty stories. This is how I plan for us to get in."

"Come again?" she asked. He couldn't be thinking of grappling that high.

"Jason crawled inside the dilapidated building. "You can climb eighty stories up yourself or follow me and save some time."

Sarah ran after John and Jason. They took their time going up what seemed like an endless stairwell taking breaks every five floors or so. They reached the roof but where Sarah stopped at the door Jason kept walking to the ledge. The first thing that went through her mind was him jumping. He turned around and held out his hand, "You asked for this now come here."

Sarah reluctantly walked closer to him. "You're not going to throw me off are you?"

Jason laughed, "Nah."

Sarah stepped back. She knew he was the Red Hood and he wasn't mentally all there. She felt like she had to be careful be damned her subconscious attraction to him. "You know if you kill me that makes you pretty ungrateful of me saving your ass out in the world."

"You act like I'm going to murder you. Honestly that is the last thing I would ever do to the person who saved my life."

She nodded and took his hand. He pointed the grapple gun up to the sky and wrapped an arm around Sarah pulling him close to his body in a tight squeeze. "Do you trust me?" he asked.

Sarah looked up at him, "I don't think I have much of a choice."

He pulled the trigger, "Then hold on."

She closed her eyes and started screaming when she realized her feet were not on the ground. Jason was calm and focused on landing near the penthouse. When they reached the end of the line he slowly eased to the floor of the penthouse balcony, Sarah still holding on to him with a death grip. He chuckled at the sight, "You can let go, you're safe."

"Safe?! You just flew off the ground holding me for sixty stories! HOW THE HELL WAS THAT SAFE?!"

"I asked if you trusted me. Well you wanted to see the penthouse. Nothing is stopping you from opening those glass doors." Sarah wanted off that balcony and ran to the doors.

She happily opened them and ran to the nearest chair to catch her breath. She took in the scenery and watched Jason as he walked around the massive living space. It had a modern theme with clean lines everywhere. The place was freakishly clean too other than a layer of dust. Jason walked up to her, "There is nothing here that we don't already have at the manor." Sarah got up and went exploring around the place. She was careful about the dark hallways so she wouldn't bump into anything. The place was so damn near perfect she was afraid she would break something wherever she stood. She reached a part of the penthouse that was largely empty save for a few furniture pieces that she figured Bruce used when he had extravagant affaires for charity events. There was one big thing in the middle of the room that stood out. A piano. She couldn't have been more excited. It looked rather standard and had nothing on the beautiful antique that was in Wayne Manor but when she pressed down on the keys for a D-flat major chord she was thrilled that it was in working condition. It sounded like a brand new piano, which wasn't the best, she favored the classical old sound, but it worked to help take some of the edge off.

Sarah was never happier to tickle the plastic keys and play out Reverie by DeBussy. She was lost to the music and blocked out the world around her. She did so much that Jason's touch on her shoulder made her jump. "I'm sorry but we are going to lose some daylight soon and I would like to meet back with Dick before he goes running to DaddyBats."

Sarah blushed, "Sorry, you know I haven't played in a while and I just couldn't help myself."

She started to get up from the bench but just as she was standing Jason was sitting. "Um you know if you wanted me to teach you how to play more than Clair de Lune you could just wait until we get back to the manor. I would rather play there where I can get some lighting and have actual music."

Jason smiled at her. "No I want to show you something now."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, "So you have been playing? How? I would have heard something."

Jason shrugged, "You're not always within ear shot. When you go down to the gym I practice a little too."

"But you can't read music."

"But I can learn by ear. People did that."

He pressed down on a few keys and played at a fairly upbeat tempo. Immediately she recognized the tune he was playing but didn't say a word. She was impressed. She couldn't help but hum along, _if love is a labor I'll slave 'til the end. I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand._

He played as if he had been playing all his life and with confidence. Something is up, she thought.

He finished playing. "Well?"

"About what? That was amazing. It was so accurate," she said with a smile on her face.

Jason nodded but smirked, "That wasn't exactly what I was getting at."

The smile on Sarah's face faded, "Oh."

"Can I be honest with you?"

"Yeah, you weren't before?"

"None of us were to begin with. Look, I have been searching for anyone I cared about, even if it was just barely. Hell I looked for some of the crooks I took down that Batman wouldn't let me kill. I did the cross country thing like you but I wasn't strong enough to survive it. I broke down, got sick, and just when I was ready to call it quits, you show up. I am grateful for that."

"And Rise Against is related how?"

"I care about you and I know this can't be done conventionally since the world has pretty much ended but would you like to be my significant other for the end of the world. Only if you want to."

"Jason, I-I don't know what to say. I mean it is nice and all but what can we do? Like you said the world has ended there really is no point in doing anything since we are just sitting and waiting for our time to come without having to end it ourselves." Sarah had a life picture in her head that by now, if the world hadn't gone to shit, she would be freaking out over her junior recital and having her father there to see it, not freak out over a guy she couldn't deny an attraction for. Everything was different now. She rationalized in her head that there was no need to freak out since Jason seemed genuine enough, but she was nervous about the idea of a significant other. Hell she never had a real boyfriend before. That could be blamed on her father's intimidation tactics on any boy when she was in high school. He had a strict no-dating-until-you're-married rule. Her mind was going a million different directions and just in a flash she turned it off.

Sarah wasn't a woman who believed in God, but she had a feeling that the universe brought them together for a reason no matter how unconventional it was.

"So?" Jason asked.

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, I will be yours."

_**This chapter was such a pain in the ass to write. I promise the next one will be better. I had rough plans for this but I got really bored in music theory and new plot bunnies showed up. New story plans! Woo Hoo! But hey I will also be taking requests. Leave a comment below and let me know **___


	11. Paradise, for a while

Sarah disappeared for hours, if not the whole day, once daylight savings came allowing more hours in the day. That June proved to be a hot and humid one testing everyone's patience with each other. Sarah only played when the sun went down for an hour, before saying goodnight to Jason.

She didn't think she could have any form of attraction to a man like Jason. Guys like him were the kind that her dad warned her about, but something about him was different. He was calm, reserved, but had his ways of shaking things up. She was happy that he was at least taking the time to properly learn how to play piano, and not by ear. Sarah was always lectured on that, though it was considered a gift, but her mother called it cheating. The lessons leading up to the summer usually ended with a smart ass commentary about how he needs to take learning seriously and how she needed to loosen up when teaching. Both were going to be impossible to break, as Dick observed. Both were skilled and impressively stubborn in their own way. He deduced that the two were a thing before Damian could, and Bruce, never being around was the last to figure it out.

But when summer rolled around she was barely playing. She and Damian went out jogging around the estate (her way of trying to form a connection with the strange boy) in the morning, and then by the afternoon she was gone. She never let on where she went or what she did, but she always came back in a good mood so Jason never questioned it.

One day he had had enough of playing the guessing game. All the years of vigilante training was put to use watching her every move. She took a bicycle out to of the garage and sped off out of the drive way, past the gates and into the woods. Jason didn't need to do much tracking with an obvious beaten down track only a bike would make after weeks of being run down. He followed the skinny track for about two miles on foot, the last half of the track running by a stream of water. The track came to a small clearing with a pond in the middle and a big weeping willow on the edge. The bike Sarah was riding sat up against the tree. She peered through the willow vines and saw his significant other sitting up in a bow, leg hanging down by the side, looking content with the scenery.

Jason climbed up the tree only to see that Sarah was asleep on the widest branch. She looked at peace, like a kid falling asleep on a park swing. It was kind of cute. She was barefoot, hair pulled back in a messy bun, in cut-offs and a white t-shirt.

He tickled her foot and she jerked it awake, slowly waking up from her afternoon nap. "You are mean," she mused.

Jason laughed, "You know, it is pretty dangerous sleeping this high up off the ground with nothing to catch you."

She knocked her fist on the branch, "I haven't yet."

He smiled at her optimism, "So this is where you go, huh?"

"More or less, there are some nice clearings farther out but this tree is far more comfortable to take an afternoon nap."

"What the hell have you been doing out here?"

"Thinking, reading, every so often I take that rope out on the farthest branch and swing into the water, wade a bit."

"All day?"

"Everyday."

"Can I ask why?"

"I needed a change of scenery. I can just let my mind go a million different directions and let loose instead of having to tiptoe around everyone in the house."

"You shouldn't have to tiptoe around me."

"Well you do have a temper, so I try to avoid that."

"Not lately."

"Yeah, like tossing a knife at Damian was being calm and collected." She knew his flaws, she wanted to correct them. What do women want in a man? A project! Sarah had seen him when he was broken and didn't care, she knew about his past life and what he did, and while that was still crossing her mind, she tried to ignore it seeing that there was no point with the future ahead of them. She just hoped he would understand one thing, something she wanted to keep until she knew she had found the one.

Jason saw a bag hanging on a branch beside her and saw a copy of a play, _Spring Awakening_ by Frank Wedekind, sticking out of a side pocket. He had meant to read that when he was in school a decade ago, but at that moment it was a waste of precious minutes training. Now he was curious what it is about, but he would ask later.

It seemed odd to use girlfriend as a term of endearment, since there was no audience to announce this too like they would have before the plague, but who was he kidding? They would never have met if it wasn't for the damn virus sending both of them on cross-country missions. The same applied to her. Sarah wasn't thrilled that the man she was dating, if you could call it that in a post-apocalyptic world, was The Red Hood. But that wasn't the person she found. She found Jason.

Their relationship was slow. It wasn't like they were in a rush, but if Jason had his way they would have progressed some. She saved his life, he owed her the respect she deserved. He always reminded himself when she rejected a display of affection, especially early on in their relationship, that she easily could have left him for dead.

"So what brought you out here?" Sarah asked.

Jason shrugged, "Nothing, really. You just disappear for hours and I was curious where you go."

"Did you think I would leave forever?" she chuckled.

"I would certainly hope not."

"Jason, for being a former Boy Wonder, you don't exactly think things through. If I had left John would have gone with me, so would some of your supplies and a car, and I would have asked you to come along."

"Really."

"I was alone for two years and it nearly drove me crazy, until I found John, but a dog can only do so much to hold on to what little sanity is left. Seriously, haven't you watched _I Am Legend_?"

She had snark, that was for sure, and he found that refreshing.

He hadn't realized how humid it was until he sat up and felt sweat soaking the back of his shirt. "Jumping in sounds like such a good idea right now," she sighed. Sarah got up and walked the to the end of the branch as if she was walking on pavement. She took off her shirt and cut-offs leaving only a green bikini (something she snagged from the backroom at the mall). Sarah grabbed the rope and swung down to the pond, letting go at the right moment making a splash. She surfaced with a big smile on her face and yelled up at Jason, "Are you chicken? C'mon!"

Jason got up and took off his shirt hollering back, "No one calls a Todd chicken."

"You talk a lot of talk, but do you walk the walk?"

Before she could swim away Jason was already in the water and coming after her. "See wasn't this a good idea?"

He swam up closer to her, "I am starting to believe you."

"Well you should believe me. I'm the woman in this relationship so I am always right."

"Oh we are soo not there yet."

"Well then where are we, Jason?"

He inched in closer for a deep kiss. "Wherever you want to be."

She returned the kiss, both were wading back to the shallow, and began making out. At this moment Sarah's train of thought was going full speed. She had never been with a guy, even in secret when she was still living under her father's roof, that made this kind of experience exciting. She wanted more. She had no idea where this desire had come from but she liked it, and Jason was receptive.

It seemed so natural to him as his hand tugged on the string of her bikini top, but the dark water kept a certain level of modesty to her. It wasn't like she was objecting any of his moves. She pushed her hips into his and wrapped her legs around his waist.

He got the hint, he took off his pants and let the float to shore.

_**God I feel sooo dirty. I suck at smut, but I'm kind of okay with that since I will never have to do that again. I didn't like writing this chapter, but my muse had other ideas for how this story was gonna go so I needed to write it. Don't judge me. **_

_**Also my muse is making me take a break from this and work on another plot line that is lurking in my notebooks. I guess this means another hiatus. Don't know how long but I promise it won't be a whole month like the first time. **_

_**Enjoy this smutty mess!**_


	12. Positive

August wasn't kind to Sarah. She had never been this sick since she was a little kid. She was tired from tossing her cookies and then some for weeks throughout the day. Migraines came at her every so often with a force that was to be reckoned with. After about a week she was tired of laying around like a bump on a log and carried a trash can to the piano room, to sit next to the bench as she taught Jason some Billy Joel. He watched over her until she pushed him away but he insisted on checking in on her. She blamed the drastic weather changes from July, but that only explained the headaches, not the nausea.

It wasn't like they had a doctor to go to. They all relied on what they learned from Alfred and she relied on old wife's tales and home remedies, which for the most part relieved some of her problems for a short while. When August rolled around Sarah started to get scared. There was no reason for an illness to stick around like it did. She knew something was serious. She just wished a doctor was around, hell a working hospital would have been great. For all she knew it could have been signs of a serious problem with her brain. All her research in the library pointed to a few other possibilities but a tumor sounded more legitimate than the others.

She broke down after throwing up during one of Jason's lessons. Sarah was scared shitless and Jason didn't know what to do. He had her show him all the things she based her research on, but was more concerned about an option she crossed out in one of the books. "It's a possibility," he said. Sarah gave him a death glare, but he insisted. She insisted that she wasn't. He insisted on getting a test, but she was hellbound and determined that it wasn't what he thought.

He waited until she went to sleep before he took the Silverado out into the city. There was a pharmacy at the mall, the same place where she had taken the eletriptan when they, where he knew he could pick two or eight different tests. It was one of the few things no one bought when the world went to hell, and for that he was somewhat thankful. Jason placed the tests in plain sight in the bathroom, knowing Sarah would wake up and make a b-line for the porcelain god.

The sight of them threw Sarah in a fury. She ran out of the bathroom after washing her mouth out, pushing Jason into the wall. "You're an ass! I know I'm not pregnant! Why are you doubting me?!"

Jason stayed calm and spoke quietly. He didn't need Dick or Damian hearing this. "I'm not saying you are, but it wouldn't hurt to be totally sure."

/ / /

Sarah thought it was damn near ridiculous that Jason had gone out and brought back eight different tests, but she wanted to be sure too. She sat on the toilet waiting for the agonizing ten minutes to be over, watching the clock with anxiety. Jason waited outside the door. A million different thoughts ran through her mind. What is she was, and what is she wasn't? What would Jason do if she was? What about the Wayne family? What on earth would she do with kid in the empty world?

She didn't have any options to take care of the situation, which scared her even more. If she was pregnant she was going to have this child whether she liked it or not. It wasn't like she had resources to teach her anything. Sarah felt truly alone.

Sarah mused a little bit about having a child in the past on her own time. She thought about raising a child to pass her gift of music down without resentment. Her father would have spoiled him or her rotten. It was just different now. This wasn't a world she wanted to raise a child in.

The ten minutes were up and she looked at the tests.

All screamed a plus sign at her.

Sarah eased herself down to the floor petrified. She was pregnant. She had a living thing inside her. It was surreal, amazing, and terrifying all at once. She sat in a daze for what seemed like forever, as if time had stopped while her mind went blank. Emotions ranging from anger to joy balled up in her throat until she snapped out of her stupor and threw up for the nth time that morning.

Jason slowly opened the door to find Sarah fighting nausea and tears, losing both battles. He didn't need to see the tests to know why. Almost out of instinct he held her hair back rubbed her spine. He didn't say a word, he just listened. There was no doubt in his mind what he was going to do. Of all the years he didn't take responsibility for any of his action, but this one he knew he had to do right by. He blamed it on being genuinely scared as well. This wasn't what he had planned in his life at all. Jason and kids just don't make sense in the larger equation of life.

When Sarah felt empty she pushed away and into Jason. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she sobbed. Jason just hushed her, "You did nothing wrong."

He got up and picked up Sarah and gently put her in bed, but stayed close by, just watching her. He was trying to wrap his head around the situation. He tried to think about how this could have happened. He knew they had only had sex once, out in the pond. He mentally kicked himself in the head for not using protection. Jason knew he was her first too. Dear lord, she may never want a damn thing to do with him after that. Could he blame her? After a half hour of crying she fell into sleep, but he stayed. Inside of her was his child. It amazed him, it made him smile, something he didn't do often or let anyone see. He hoped it would be a girl. He didn't know why but that was what he wanted.

/ / /

"We have to tell them." Jason was adamant.

Sarah was anything but. "You don't know what they will do. How are we going to tell them that we are bringing a child into this world?"

"Easy. You, no, we will tell Bruce first."

Sarah narrowed her puffy red eyes at him, "He barely surfaces from the cave to participate in life, what makes you think he would now?"

"Alright, we can tell Dick if that is what you want?"

"I just don't want everyone to know, ok!"

Jason was getting tired of this argument. Sarah was impressively stubborn. "Look it's just the three of them. Eventually they will notice you blowing up like a balloon. Would you rather wait until then or tell them now to give them some fair warning?"

Sarah said nothing.

"You know I'm right. Just please, work with me. Hell, Bruce might know a thing or two and Dick would probably help us out. He is more of a family guy than anyone I knew."

"I'm just ashamed."

"You know you're going to be a bad mom if that is all you think. There is nothing to be ashamed of now."

"I'm just scared!" she screamed through her tears.

Jason didn't want to say what he had to say, but it was the only way to get her to agree with him. "Sarah, do the math. You are almost two months pregnant. We don't have a whole lot of resources. No doctors, nothing. I would rather them know and unleash their wrath. If something were to go wrong we at least know they are around if we need them. Please, just do this with me." Jason never thought he would plead for his life. He never did when he was killed by the Joker, but this was worth letting his pride down for a moment. Sarah nodded her head silently. "Good, lets tell them tomorrow. We both need to get used to the idea." Jason got up to leave the room and head to his own to change out of the clothes he wore to the mall. Sarah perked up as he clasped the door nob.

"You wouldn't leave me, right?" she asked.

Jason turned around to look at her, "I will do anything to give our child everything I never had, what we never had. I have screwed up a lot, but I will not screw this up."


	13. Life on Earth

Bruce couldn't believe was he had just heard as he stared down his wayward son and Sarah beside him. He thought, no, he knew he had taught him better. After all of Dick's scares with his many women he thought Jason would catch on to the subtle messages. He just could not believe it. "When did you find out?" he asked.

Jason spoke, since Sarah was at a near loss of words since the day before, "Yesterday morning. We would have told you then but we needed to get used to the idea first ourselves."

Bruce tried to control his anger. How could they have done this? How could they be bringing a child into this wasteland? "You realize what this means right now?"

Jason knew this tone. He wasn't going to take it. He whispered to Sarah to leave the cave for a short bit, knowing he and Bruce were going to wage some war in a few seconds. That was the last thing he felt Sarah needed to hear. "I would like to know what you think it means, Bruce."

"It means that the both of you are complete morons!"

"For what, bringing some kind of life in this dead place?"

"You are bringing a life into a dead world. There is nothing here for it! You think you can raise a child on nothing?!"

Jason was pissed now, "It's not like we have to worry about buying stuff or having to pay bills, or have to find a place of our own! Hell, starting on nothing means we can build."

Bruce slammed his fists on the arms of the chair he was sitting in, "You're an idiot, Jason! That child it is a survival liability now."

Jason could not believe what he was hearing. If having one extra person was a liability why on earth did he take in back under his roof and take in Sarah. "You are calling what is practically your grandchild a survival liability?" he asked with a snarl.

"You got a girl pregnant! There are no doctors and no working hospitals. You are risking two lives with one package, think about it!"

"You don't think I realize that?!" Jason's shout echoed throughout the cave. When he heard it he knew he had to calm down and think about ways to get Bruce to turn off the Batman function in Bruce. "At least you are not blaming the baby."

Bruce huffed, "How can I? It's not its fault that the parents weren't thinking about what they were doing." He paused and got quiet, "How far along do you think she is?"

Jason looked down at his fists, "I did the math between the sex and now. I'm pretty sure she is near two months."

"Get out of my sight, Jason."

The wayward son of the Wayne family stomped up the staircase and into the library. He hoped Sarah didn't hear any of that, but he was glad that confrontation was over. If that was how Bruce took the news, he knew Dick and Damian wouldn't unleash their furies.

Speak of the devil, Dick was walking into the study when Jason emerged from behind the clock. "What the hell was going on down there?" he asked nonchalantly. Jason looked up at his older brother, a sight for sore eyes, "Would you rather hear it from me or him?"

Dick chose wisely, "You, after that noise I would like to know what I'm getting into."

Jason knew it was probably more prudent to have Sarah with him or have him tell Dick, "Sarah's pregnant."

Dick was stunned. He sat on the edge of Bruce's dust covered desk while Jason leaned cross armed on the bookcase. Dick took in the news in silence. He couldn't decide if he should be happy for his younger brother or something else. He wasn't angry at least. Jason waited for an answer but he was never the patient one of the Robins. "You're not pissed?"

Dick shrugged, "Jason I honestly don't know what to say, but I'm not pissed."

"Then what do you think?"

Dick thought for a moment, "I think it will all work out. I mean, you survived Bruce's wrath so it is a start."

Jason chuckled at the thought, "You think we did a bad thing? You know the whole this-is-the-end-of-the-world and bringing a child into it."

"What did Bruce say?"

"He called it a survival liability."

Dick snickered, "He would say that if he had a clue what was going on above the cave. We will have to get more stuff, some extra supplies, sooner than I calculated but nothing we can't handle."

"I know there is only so much out there. With a child we are going to have to get creative."

"All the more reason to start being more self-sufficient. Honestly the only thing you will have to worry about is education."

"Bruce brought up one good point. Unless you got some medical training form the police force, even if we follow the rules, this is a high risk pregnancy."

"You don't know that, Jason."

"Would it be safer to treat it as so?"

"That is true. But the last thing she needs is the stress when this world is practically anything but."

Silence.

"How do you feel about being an uncle?"

Dick smiled from ear to ear, "I think I could get used to that. Damian will take a while to warm up to the idea."

Jason laughed at the thought, "I will have to watch what he teaches him or her."

/ / /

Sarah did whatever she could to calm her nerves. Thinking about the baby was not one of those. John was a sensitive dog and did not leave her side; he could sense when something was wrong and instinctively placed his head on her knee. Sarah was still shaking from telling Brue, and it was heard when she played through Reverie. She heard the jokes that pitches love vibrato, but that did not apply to piano.

But no matter what she did she couldn't stop thinking about the little human inside of her. It still didn't seem real to her. He put her hand on her still relatively flat stomach and thought about the next seven months, how her body was going to drastically change. Suddenly she felt excited for the future. She had something to live for, not live out.

_**Holy shit, two updates in one day! I know it seems kind of short, but oh well. I just couldn't wait to throw this online, even without editing. I am beyond excited about how this is turning out. I haven't decided if this is going to be a happy or sad story. Ok, it's just going to be about living. Thanks to AJCrane for an idea about names, but I have plans that will work really nicely with the idea of the two picking names already. **_

_**Be one of the cool kids and leave a review. Tell your friends!**_


	14. Musical Theater

Dick and Jason, sometimes Damian, since the pregnancy was announced did one of two things: Planned ahead for supplies or bickered about the longevity of said supplies. Sarah tried to include herself, but couldn't handle to brotherly spats. She called them all immature brats. Dick deduced it down to the hormones and her unhappiness of being sick for now three months.

She hated every minute of the pregnancy and refused to go outside, but remained holed up in the manor content to toss her cookies until she felt empty whilst watching musical movies. She had two fainting spells but it was enough to make Jason obsessive over Sarah's health. John was usually attached to her side, but he was only a dog, what could the mutt do? Sarah could already feel and physical change happening and refused to accept it, but there were times when she couldn't help but rub her small bump and smile. Damn those hormones.

September was chillier and it made Dick worry about gathering whatever they could form the city before the weather got nasty in November. The baby was due any time in the spring, but he was cautious. He had convinced Jason to first run through the city of ruins to replenish the overall food and survival supplies even when Jason protested.

Jason was weary to leave Sarah, not after a recent fainting spell. Damian was assigned to stay behind at the manor with her, something neither he or Sarah were thrilled about. Damian was not happy now at fifteen that he was being doubted, Sarah simply because she thought the teenager was fairly creepy.

Once the elder brothers had gone and turned form the long driveway into the city Sarah and John turned back deep into the manor. The hometheater. She had been spending time in there when she had migraines with its constant darkness and silence. She had played a few drinking games before she was pregnant there, often passing out on the couch with Dick on the floor and Jason, for some unfathomable reason, by the silver screen.

She looked through the vast collection of movies she brought back from the city months ago and settled on one of her favorites that had yet to watch in a long time. It was one of those movies she had to be in the mood to see. It had a habit of infusing its musical numbers in her head leading to her sing in her, at least what her mother deemed, her trained voice. _The Phantom of the Opera._

She had seen the musical in the municipal theater when her mother's former theater company had returned to the city for a tour stop. They had gotten tickets and access to the stage as favors from her mother's friends. Sarah remembered fondly of sitting in the balcony being consumed by the musical around her. She had grown up around the musical performances, and all that she had seen were great, but it had nothing on Weber's creation.

She flipped on the surround sound and settled into the large couch in vain hope of finding a comfortable position. Out of the corner of her eye she caught of glimpse of piercing blue eyes and ebony hair, she jumped, "Shit! Where the hell did you come from?"

Damian rolled his eyes, "I live here."

"I didn't hear you come in."

"You expect me to knock in my own house? Imbecile."

"At least some footsteps? Kid, you're going to give me a heart attack."

Damian just scowled. Sarah was sure that was how he spoke, in scowls.

She got her breath and pressed play on the main menu. Damian was intrigued by the black and white opening scene. It was the music box with the monkey o top that pulled on his attention. The music was familiar. He had heard it before, but couldn't put a finger on it. The overature and color brought life into the room and he had to sit and take it all in. He knew it was a musical, but unlike the opening nights of the contemporary theater that Bruce had dragged him to this one seemed more refined.

Sarah didn't even realize he was sitting next to her, but when she did she didn't bother him. She could see that the play had him entranced. Music had a way of doing that.

Damian was enchanted by the whole thing. A masked figure hiding in a catacomb, no one knows his real identity, but he is powerful. It was when the Phantom began to sing 'Music of the Night' that he felt something other than the typical feeling of confidence and resentment. It was a lightness.

As the first half of the movie neared he felt as if he could have been brought to his knees by 'All I Ask of You', in particular the Phantom's bit before the end and the chandelier fell. 'Masquarade', as Sarah mentioned in the middle of the number, was in her opinion done better in the film than live. It was less a painter's palette and a tasteful arrangemtn of good, white, black, and glitter. Damian was even more entranced in the psychology of the movie when 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again' played in the cemetery. He had seen and fought foes who had doe similar tricks unto their victims, but this gave him a feeling of sympathy that he had not felt in ages. It gave him chills. The final confrontation of 'The Point of No Return' in Don Juan had ended and the movie was rolling credits when Sarah and turned on the lights. Damian was still sitting on the couch looking as if a part of his world was turned upside down. The look freaked Sarah out. It just wasn't normal to see the abrasive teen like that. "You ok?" she asked.

Damian didn't even look at her. "What was that?"

"Uh, a musical."

"No, no, what was that that I had heard?"

"Music. I don't understand what you are getting at."

"Music."

Sarah nodded her head, "Yeah. You have heard it. I play it all the time on the piano, but you just call it noise."

"That was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard." Sarah could have sworn she saw a tiny tear roll from his eye. Now she was worried.

"It was one of the longest running musicals of all time. You have never seen it?"

"I may have, but not in an audience. But that…I had never felt this way before."

Sarah sat beside him. She felt more confident now with the teen. She had possibly just broke his shell. "Music speaks what we can't with our words."

"I don't understand."

Sarah knew something was wrong when he said that. She thought her explanation was simple. "What happened to you Damian?"

"What kind of question is that?" he scoffed half heartedly.

"Music is what soothes the soul, it doesn't matter what kind it is. You act as if you had never been like this before. What happened to you, Damian?"

Damian quietly thought of a proper answer. He clung to the secrecy of his heritage as much as he could, still holding onto the life of secrecy the Wayne family had. It was normal for him. His normal no longer existed and it scared him. "You wouldn't understand." He got up and began to walk away.

"I would if you just talked to me, and not that weird creeper tone you usually have."

"You wouldn't understand. I came from a world that no one believe existed."

"I think you of all people should know that nothing surprises me anymore since I figured out this family's secret. Just tell me."

Damian wanted to discontinue the conversation. He wanted to forget that the whole thing with Sarah and the music happened. Forgetting was getting easier everyday in the dead world, but the music and the emotions that came with it were stuck on him.

_**How does one even try to write Damian or Bruce? I need help I that department. I wanted to give a little time with the youngest of the family since Jason has had the spotlight and will be sharing with Dick more now than before. **_

_**A little sidenote about the whole TPotO, I wasn't watching the movie with Gerard Butler, I was watching the 25**__**th**__** Anniversary performance in Royal Albert Theater on Netflix. I love you Gerard and his sex appeal in the role, but the theater folks can give me chills and bring tears to my eyes. **_

_**R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R **_


	15. Ave Maria

It isn't very often that in the middle of December it is sixty degrees and raining. There was no snow or anything of that nature. Hell, the day before it was sunny and the birds were singing their loud obnoxious songs. Everyone, with the exception of Bruce, still brooding and waiting for a sign from the League, took advantage of it. Sarah had been in one of her decent moods with her hormones under some slight control and adventured out around the estate. At one point she laid out on the balcony overlooking the city in ruins to conquer her overwhelming paleness, belly out in the open and all. At almost six months she fully embraced the pregnancy. Sarah sort of used it to have her bidding done for her at some points, but only for practical things, like finding some goddamn nutella spread.

The weather made them all forget that Christmas was near. The last few years they didn't bother to celebrate, seeing no one else was and it being fairly hard to find anything to be cheerful about. It was all about survival now. The pregnancy changed that, especially for Dick (since Jason was and continued to be the cranky curmudgeon). His soon to be niece or nephew should experience the one time joy that they did, just slightly different. They were going to grow up with a different kind of appreciation for the holiday.

The first thing Dick thought was to find all of Bruce's things his family kept in the attic of the manor that belonged to a baby Bruce. Geesh the idea that Bruce was at one point a little thing seemed so wrong at the moment. Whatever they didn't have he would go into the city and search for. He knew he had to go into the city anyway for his own adventure in research. He knew he was the only one in the family with basic training in childbirth per the training from his years in the police force, but he only acted upon that twice. Dick was rusty. He had to get his game together and prepare for anything nature threw at them.

He took his motorbike out into the city just leaving a note for Jason or Damian to find if they inquired about his absence. The sun was shining so brightly and the weather was so wonderful that for a long stretch of road he increased his speed and road with no hands, just taking in the brief moment of beauty that an empty world brought. He hadn't felt so alive in years. Even as he carefully maneuvered through the lower streets by Gotham University he couldn't wipe the silly grin off his face.

The place he once called his college home still looked pristine in its own way. When the outbreak occurred they cleared all public places out, shutting them down. No one dared to try unlocking to wrought iron college gates. He opened up his messenger bag and pulled out a crowbar, ready to break into the massive Victorian style library.

Once Dick broke in memories came flooding back to him, mostly of the times he went to the library and did anything but study. The hopeless all-nighters on the main floor with Barbara that lead to nothing getting done and the make out sessions on the eighth floor stacks; they were all a bittersweet memory now. He broke into the basement archives, where they kept the old cards with book locations on them before they all went digital thirteen years before. He pulled a few cards with titles and contents that he needed. The medical section of the library was high up on the tenth floor stacks. Dear lord did he still hate those stairs. Old, wood, creaky, and they were steep as hell. Dick quickly found the books and blew the dust off the shelves and the reading desk by the large window that faced out to campus and the once valiant cityscape. He found an old highlighter and went through the books, taking in everything he felt he needed to. It was best to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. As far as he knew and was concerned Sarah was progressing fairly well but he was bothered by how frequent her migraines were. She couldn't do a thing about them and he was sure when he heard her say they weren't increasing in pain that she was lying. That worried him and Jason. If only the world was functioning again their worries, Bruce, would all go back to their normal ways.

The more he thought about all possibilities the more he became paranoid about the risk of the pregnancy. Dick knew in the beginning that there was a slight possibility of something going wrong, but now he was so aware of that possibility, no, he wasn't going to be negative about the situation. He picked up the books, placed them in the messenger bag, and made his way down to the ground floor. He took one good look around the main floor and began to regret his decision to go on his research mission. Dick knew he was going to have to tell Sarah about what he had found, but after seeing her bloom and Jason drastically change from the little monster he was to the man he was now it killed him on the inside. To Dick it was going to be a lot like his police force says when he had to go to the families of the victims to break the terrible news in the middle of the night, the parents were the worst.

He got on his bike and drove away, slowly, trying to give himself time to prepare his speech to Sarah. Dick could picture how she would react and it made him sick to his stomach. Over the last year he had looked fondly at her as a little sister. The brother was supposed to protect the sister and he wasn't sure if he could.

The bright sun shining around the tall buildings mocked the mood. It was like the day he buried his parents, when he cursed the sky for providing pleasantries when he was at the lowest of lows. Dick kept driving around the ruins until one place stopped him.

Gotham Catherdral.

Dick couldn't put his finger on why he stopped but it seemed only fitting. He ignored the faded public notice on the door and opened the unlocked to the nave. The stained glass windows illuminated the large, dark space and pillars. The pews were flawless and had a thick layer or dust on them, but he didn't care. Dick genuflected and stared at the crucifix hanging from the ornate ceiling.

Dick felt like talking to the image of Christ hanging above him. "I know I have been horrible about paying my respect to you and all you have done, but you can't blame me for questioning right?" he paused waiting in vain for an answer. "I don't know if it was just me losing faith after all that I had seen being Nightwing, the Batman on a few occasions, hell as a police officer. When creatures like The Joker who killed my brother are in the world I had to wonder if your father even cared. I knew Gotham was called hell on earth, but I had faith. Maybe I was fooling myself right?" Silent tears fell from his eyes. That was all he was going to allow. "You know how they tell us when we are little that God has a plan for everything, I have to admit if that is the case God is pretty sick and twisted. Was the world ending part of the plan? Was everyone dying part of the plan? Was the Joker, Two-Face, and that whole fucked up bunch part of the grand plan? There have been a lot of good people who didn't deserve half the things you dealt. Alfred, Barbara, Jim, Selina, Tim, Jason, even Bruce, they didn't deserve any of this. I get that we all have to struggle and that is a part of life, but you take it too damn far!" he shouted. His voice rang through the tall halls. He got really disgusted by the image he was staring at. "Damn it, I want you to look at me and you tell me how dying on that cross really saved us! Are you even going to come back and save your last followers?!"

He got up and walked to around the sanctuary, he wanted to figure out what on earth that damn man on the crucifix could be staring at. He followed the fake gaze to a west wing statue that was covered by a white sheet. He pulled the sheet and revealed the statue of the Virgin Mary and a rack of little red candles. Behind the statue were some painted words. _Ave Maria, gratia plena, ave dominus tecum,_ _Benedicta tu in mulieribu, Et benedictus fructus ventris tuae, Jesus. Ave Maria, Mater Dei, Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, Nunc et in hora mortis, Et in hora mortis nostrae._

Dick turned back to face the crucifix, "If this is what you have been asking for, you really need to think about how you present it. It was pretty vague for a few thousand years." He reluctantly knelt down in front of Mary, he found a small lighter on the floor and lit one of the small candle. "Please, all I ask is that she be alright. She doesn't deserve whatever horrible thing comes at her or the baby. Jason needs her. We need her. She brought us out of the darkness, she brought Jason back to us. Sarah has to be okay. She is a good person. I know you frown upon the circumstances that got her with child, but it's a very different world now. I just hope you understand. Please, protect her, at least protect the child."

Dick got up and walked out of the Cathedral, got back on his bike, and sped back to the manor just as the sun began to lower in the sky. He walked back up the stairs to the study to see Jason and Damian looking furious. "What happened?" he asked his brothers.

Damian's scowl had returned. "Father is gone."

"What do you mean he's gone? He almost never leaves the cave."

Jason spoke, "We checked the computer and the cave. He took the batwing and is heading to Clark's Fortress of Solitude."

"Why the hell would he go there? There hasn't been a signal from there in years."

"There wasn't a signal, but there was a movement. Damian tried to reason with him, but Dick, Bruce is too far gone. He just left."

"He is gone into the darkness," Damian muttered.

With that Dick nodded and asked Jason, "Where is Sarah?"

"Probably making something in the kitchen, why?" he replied.

Dick sighed and decided against telling him his concerns and what he had found. It could wait one more day, right?

_**This has taken a different turn than I had planned, and you know what? I like it. I turned on some Mumford and Sons and Florence and the Machine and let them dictate my muse. I should be studying for finals, but honestly zero fucks are being given. I was done with this semester after marching season ended. Still could use some ideas. Here is the sad part: I have to put both Can't Catch Me in the Young Justice category and this on hiatus. It is finals, I'm going home for two weeks (where there is no internet), and I will be in Shreveport, Louisiana for the Independence Bowl with the Marching 110. Sorry. Love you all, mean it!**_


	16. Realization

Four more weeks. If it wasn't for the gorgeous weather spring brought Sarah would have lost her mind and done whatever she could to induce labor. She voiced her complaints loud and clear the moment her feet couldn't fit into a plain pair of sandals. Bearfoot and pregnant had a whole new meaning they mused. Sarah felt that the child was baked and ready to come out of the oven but Dick was adamant that she be patient. His serious tone with her shocked her at first then it worried her. She trusted Jason and Dick, but she could tell something was up with the eldest son. He wasn't his typically chatty self. He always spoke to Jason in hushed tones, always away from her, and when she asked Jason what was going on Jason only half smiled and said it was about nothing.

If they were concerned about her they really should have talked to her about it. Sarah hated the secrecy the Wayne family had, even when they showed her the cave she could tell they were still hiding somethings from her. Headaches and lack of sleep since the little one refused to stay still; all this accumulated to a very unhappy pregnant woman.

Damian stayed away from her wrath, Dick couldn't look at her, Jason did what he could to tolerate her. Even mentioning baby names ended with a fight. They could only agree on one boy name, Warren Daniel, but the girl's name was a subject of war.

By three and a half weeks Sarah's rage had quieted. Damian joked, a rarity, and said it was the quiet before the storm.

The cause was disturbing. She pulled Dick to the side, not wanting to worry Jason, and said to him, "I haven't felt the baby move in the last few days."

Dick's face turned to stone. "Are you sure? Do feel any different? Like something is wrong?"

"No I feel happy as a clam, of course I feel different. I don't know what to do. I haven't felt her move and I don't know why but I'm scared that something is going to happen."

"Her?"

Smile snuck past the worry on her face, "Yeah I just have this feeling that I'm having a little girl. Don't tell Jason, he was hoping for a son."

Dick placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her dead in the eyes. "Whatever is going on, I promise it will be alright. Nothing will go wrong."

"You're not a doctor, Dick."

"I will do the best I can."

Sarah looked down and away from Dick. She didn't really think about what she was about to say but she said it anyway. "If something were to happen save this baby first."

Dick shook his head, "No, nothing will happen. You're going to be fine. You and Jason and the child will have a whole new life."

"Dick, I'm not an idiot. Just please, don't let Jason go down a dark path. She will need him, she will need you too."

Dick pulled her into his arms, "I promise I will do everything in my power."

"Don't tell Jason about this, please. I don't want him to worry. I want him to have a sound mind. I need him to be strong when I can't."

Dick shook his head and affirmed. He wanted to deny everything from the last few months that he learned. He didn't know why then he was so worried. If Sarah was calm he should have been too, but this was a curveball that no one expected.

_**I know this is super short, but my muse has other plans for me that now include putting this on a backburner. Until my muse decides that this needs attention then I'm going to leave it alone. Sorry folks, but don't stop the reviews. Some of you have been very helpful with this journey. I really wanted to make this chapter longer, really I did, but it worked out like sparknotes: short, concise, and to the point.**_

_**Looking back now I really wished I used Les Mis for Damian's musical enlightenment. I just watched the movie with a bunch of my school of music friends and one of our directors. We were all still crying all the way home. That was a musical done right! That little demon spawn probably would have lost it at "I Dreamed a Dream" and at "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables".**_


	17. Of Grave Importance

Dear Readers, Reviewers, and Followers,

I am writing and publishing this letter as a notice to the discontinuation of "A Light In The Ruins" for the time being.

I apologize for this major inconvenience. Believe me I hate having unfinished business. I am incredibly busy with classes (mostly writing), sorority, ensembles (because two band/choirs is never enough), trying to find a job, and moving into a new house that now certain fanfictions get the silent (finger) treatment. This was a really fun fic, but I don't know what to do anymore. I have run out of ideas for these characters to develop them and bring them out of the post-apocalyptic funk. Maybe I just got bored with it. I will let you all decide. Maybe it will bring me out of the funk and back to ALitR.

For those who follow me on the Young Justice side, "Backfire", and the other Batman fics, I will not be following through with the cross-over event idea. I had an honest outline all planned out and then my muse went mute. I blame the sad news about the show being cancelled. If you are following me around the Supernatural category, be patient. I will finish "The Ridges".

I am deeply sorry. I feel like you are all victims of writer/reader Stockholm syndrome. Thank you soo much for sticking with me and understanding. You are all awesome.

Again, if you want to help me out with this feel free to leave some helpful words in that box below.

(Insert Vulcan Salute here)

-Amie


	18. Never Forget

_**I wouldn't consider this a break in the discontinuation of ALitR, but I managed to get some free time to write this chapter up and give you all something to enjoy. **_

It was a matter of waiting now.

Sarah was content to staying in her room and wait, like a hen guarding her nest. There wasn't anything else they could do now. They could worry, they could prepare for the worst, but they preferred to hope for the best. The stress wasn't good but it was impossible for Dick not to let it get to him. Jason

Bruce had yet to surface from the cave since his return from The Fortress of Solitude months before other than to see what his sons. It seems that with another person soon to be added in the household he might as well be polite and see what was left of his family was up to. No one really knew what Bruce was like anymore and those who were around him at the moment walked on egg shells. It wouldn't be long before he would return to the cave. Just another added variable to the household tension.

Jason was attached to Sarah's hip when she wasn't in the room, ready to do anything for her, but she was quick to snap at him, "I'm pregnant, not dying! I'm plenty capable of getting my own glass of water." Secretly she would have had him at her beck and call, but she felt a need to prove herself to the big boys club ever since day one. She was uncomfortable and that was an understatement. Sarah felt that she was overdue at this point and was ready to do whatever it took to get the baby out of her, give her body a fuckin' break.

It was spring and every creature out there had already had their offspring, why was hers any different?! It just wasn't fair!

Jason had taken to sleeping with Sarah more and more, he couldn't explain why but he liked knowing that if anything were to happen that Sarah wouldn't be alone and his child would be safe as far as he was concerned. He screwed up enough, he thought, but this child was his way of doing something right.

He was glad he was there every night, especially on _the_ night.

Jason could remember it clear as day and would for the rest of his life. He knew something was wrong when he could feel Sarah next to him curl into a tight ball and the sheets damp. He remembered calling for Dick, hearing his hollers echoes through the manor's corridors, not caring if he woke up the demon child.

Jason still remembered vividly of those next twenty-eight hours.

He thought back to all his injuries in the past, even his own death and how painful everything was, but when he looked down at Sarah in labor he wouldn't wish that pain on anyone. She was in hell with a migraine on top of that. He was pissed at the fact that there was nothing they could do about either sources of pain. Labor would be over, but it had been months since she had a migraine and god only knew when they would be over. The poor girl couldn't catch a break. Sarah did her best to keep up her tough façade, but they all could see through it.

Damian never entered the room, but they all knew he was sitting outside the door listening in on what was going on while reading a book to pass the time.

They would all remember Sarah's primal screams for those last four hours and the small feeble cry that followed that next dawn.

Jason would never forget the first time he laid eyes on their little girl. For that moment when Dick put her on Sarah's chest, every wrong he made, all the atrocities in the world didn't matter anymore. It was like the tiny little girl had flipped a switch in his brain and a whole new person filled whatever void there was in him since his death.

No one had seen Sarah cry, except Jason when they found out she was pregnant to begin with, but no one was going to judge her. As if it was a cosmic eye wink the sun light peaked through the drapes in Sarah's room, nature's little sign of a new day. Cheesy but Jason wasn't going to complain. A little bit of light was allowed in the darkness.

/ / /

Dick made a point to check in every few hours to make sure his handiwork on child delivery was recovering fine. The no-name baby girl looked healthy as far as he was concerned but it was Sarah who he was worried about, what with the migraine that had happened and was still taking its toll, even if the pain was receding according to her. Sarah was exhausted but was reluctant to sleep, insisting that she wasn't going to let the child out of her sight. After much coaxing on Dick's part she let Jason take her out of her arms.

While she slept Jason couldn't help but let his mind wander while he held his baby girl. For starters, there should have been a rocking chair of some sort. There wasn't much of a crib either. They were going to have to improvise on a lot of things. They knew it from the get-go that there was no manual to raise a child and there sure as hell was no way to instruct on raising a child with a devastated world. It scared the hell out of him. He wasn't sure how they were going to be adequate parents, especially him. Granted that neither he or Sarah came from a functional family, but Jason barely remembered his father but remembered his strung out mother, being a parent instead of a child to an adult specifically. That was all he knew. All Sarah knew was being resented by her mother and stage pressure and caring for her PTSD father while struggling to find her own feet to walk her own path. He didn't want any that for his little girl. The future was a scary thing. What was Damian going to think? What was Bruce going to think?

He shook his head in effort to shake out any thought of the future. Jason decided that the present was more important. For starters, his daughter needed a name.

_**A little snippet for you loyal readers. I promise to get Bruce in here at some point. Let me know what you think! The semester is coming to an end so expect more frequent updates, especially over the summer.**_


	19. Sixteen Years

"Alright, one more time. What are the rules when you are hunting?" his voice was gruff and his hands but it matched his hardened exterior. He looked down at her with his arms crossed, using his father voice.

"Be back by high noon, stay in the trees, don't use the gun unless it is real trouble but stick to the knife and bow." The teen that was standing in front of him inspecting her bow and pocketing the gun in her jeans, knife tucked in the side of her boot, and denim jacket tied around her waist. She had heard this sermon a million times and only hoped her grandfather would get the hint that she knew it. Her father, mother, and uncles drove it into her like a railroad spike the day she was able to pick up a shotgun without assistance and that was when she was seven. "C'mon, Gramps. I got this. I've gone hunting by myself a million times."

The old man scoffed, "Then your percentage ratio of you bringing back anything is rather dismal."

"Math is so overrated," she scoffed. The girl rolled her eyes at him and walked off the back step off the grand patio and hopped on her ATV, motoring out to the woods a half mile across the field.

Bruce watched his granddaughter drive away, her long jet black hair braid bouncing off her back with every bump she hit on the way through the back field. For him it felt like yesterday she was seeing her for the first time, barely a day old when Jason sent Dick down to the cave and pulled him out of the dark just to meet his granddaughter. She was so tiny, and even now at sixteen and five feet, seven inches later, she was still a fragile little girl to him.

He turned around to go back in his house, the family home, but not to the cave. He hadn't been down there in years, not since she was a little tyke and snuck in, almost teetering off the edge into the abyss. He shut down the whole place after that scare albeit reluctantly.

Bruce was getting too old and arthritic to do much other than serve as the head patriarch and stand guard. His looks would suggest otherwise. He laughed whenever he saw himself in the mirror and still had his hair, only a few graying hairs and an impressive beard. Bruce was met by his granddaughter's old pointer hound, Winchester, who lately served as his company when everyone was out of the house since John passed away a few years back. Although his granddaughter was plenty capable of taking care of herself he always stood watch from the kitchen window that faced the woods when Sarah and Jason were gone in the city. Whenever he could spot her coming back from the woods he would move away, just to give her a sense of independence. She was stubborn and born with a give-em-hell attitude. If she figured out he still watched her she would fight him to let her be, to trust, and those fights were never pretty. She had Jason's snarl but the passive aggressiveness that Sarah used only when she needed to get her point across. She looked like Sarah but she had Jason's personality.

The thought made Bruce smile when he thought about the old days before Jason died. During the Robin days. Her name fitted her so well, despite Jason's initial refusal when she was only a day old.

Robynn.

/ / /

After parking the ATV at the edge of the woods she walked a quarter mile into the thicket and perched herself up on a thick branch of an oak tree. The cool spring air nipped at her neck that she pulled her jacket over her shoulders. She had a few hours to wait for a deer or something to aim at. Every so often she got a deer, at least six a year since her parents allowed her to hunt, but rabbits were her unintentional specialty. She was tired of rabbit stew, but it was easy to kill them.

She usually found a little bit of sun through the branches and worked on her tan. Color was good. At least that was what she learned from all those movies and TV shows on DVD she saw. All the girls in the old magazines she found with advertisements had girls lying out on a beach somewhere, all bronzy glowing the sun.

That was normal, right? Normal had a new meaning, but it wasn't like she knew better. All she knew was her family, Gotham ruins, and the Wayne Estate. Every so often when she went into the city, in place of her mother when she was down with a migraine, she would slip into the library and flips through the old news archives. Life before the virus fascinated her. It seemed either glamorous or depressing, especially everything after 2003. She avoided all the teen magazines knowing that nothing in those things would every apply to her. She wasn't going to have to flirt well, dress up for prom, or keep that summer romance alive. She was either happy she never grew up that shallow or she was sad that she would never experience what looked like rites of passage. But the sadness didn't last long. It was when she got a hold of a National Geographic three years ago that she caught the travel bug. Robynn longed to see what was outside of the Gotham ruins, but she would never get past her parents, her uncles, even her grandfather. Her father and mother said that they had already been out there and there was nothing except desolation. They were adamant. The rest of the family backed them up. The card were stacked up against her and her dream to get out of Gotham and to stop worrying about living to tomorrow, but one day she knew she would grow her wings and fly.

In a few short hours she bagged three rabbits, no deer, and before she knew it, it was noon. Time to get back to the house.

/ / /

Damian was outside in flannel and throwing a garden hoe into the soft clay. It was only mid-March, but he was going to get a jumpstart on the year's yield. He expanded his little vegetable garden to a whole acre in hopes of having more than enough to eat to get the family through more than just winter but enough to make worrying about eating the next day a thing of the past. It was an ambitious goal, but Damian liked challenges. He stopped when he heard the rumbled of an ATV engine coming at him from a distance. Robynn always checked in with her uncle Damian after a hunt. She liked him the best. They were closer in age despite being thirteen years apart, but they picked on each other like they were both fifteen.

Robynn pulled up to the edge of the disrupted soil and cut the engine. She observed the many rows of whatever her uncle had planted and smirked. "So you think more than thirty percent of this will survive the summer?"

Damian being ever so clever took the hoe and threw a little clay at his niece. "If you knock off that smart mouth you might just see ten of it."

Robynn made the face that mocked old nineties anti-drug use television adds, "I learned it from you."

"Your father didn't help either."

"What can I say, I learn from the best."

Damian dropped the hoe on the edge and dusted off his hands. He was done for the day and it was barely noon. He never wasted daylight. He glanced at the back of the ATV and saw the three rabbits, "More stew?"

"You got a better idea?" Robynn asked with annoyance.

"Yeah, get a deer."

She flipped him the bird. "You want a ride back to the manor or not?"

Damian nodded and hopped on the back, "As you elder I believe I get the right to begin with."

"Doesn't mean you get the right to a smooth ride."

/ / /

They were elbow deep in prepping the vermin for supper, Damian working on the actual meat and Robynn on creating the stock with Winchester at watch from under the kitchen sink. Jason and Sarah couldn't cook worth squat, and Bruce never learned. Dick could work some magic, but he was out in the city with Jason and Sarah. For the most part though Robynn and her uncle were the primary chefs. The family mused that they would be screwed if those two ever got hurt or died of natural causes.

Robynn had gotten very good at telling time via sun and deduced by the shadow on the kitchen floor, touching the swinging doors at this point, that it was four in the afternoon. Her parents and her other uncle were gone for almost eight hours now, but they should have been back two hours ago. "Damian?"

"Yeah?"

"You haven't heard from mom, dad, or Dick right?"

Damian looked up from the bloody rabbit on the counter, "No, why?"

"They should have been back by now."

Damian nodded in agreement. "We need to tell Bruce?"

Robynn knew it had to be serious when Damian called in Bruce for an inquiry on her family's whereabouts. They were never more than a half hour late whenever they went out, usually they came home early. "Yeah."

Winchester's ears perked up and he let out a low bark.

Someone was entering the drive-way. Robynn sighed relief and they both resumed what they were doing.

It wasn't until they could clearly hear the distinct sound of the main front doors opening that they both left the kitchen in haste.

Already they were on high alert. No one used those doors unless they had a damn good reason to get back in the house, this had to be urgent, otherwise they would have entered the house from the garage on the south side of the mansion.

Robynn and Damian ran down the grand staircase to see Dick and Sarah holding Jason up by his arms, all of them looking tired and Jason unconscious. "Dad!"

"What the hell happened?" Damian asked.

Sarah traded spots with Damian who took her side of Jason's weight. She looked like hell. "Don't know," she said. "We found him like this."

Robynn watched the trade off of information and followed all of them up to the nearest bedroom. She saw everything she was sure her mother wouldn't want her to see. Her dad was bloody to hell. There was a lot of blood coming from his head too. What the hell was out there in the city?

Dick wasted no time getting his brother inside the room and running out to hollering for Bruce. Robynn learned everything about practical field medicine when she started hunting on her own, but she never thought she would ever have to use it, especially on her dad who, in her mind, was Mister Indestructable. First thing was first, find the source of the bleeding, which in this case was on his left leg, right in the thigh. From the look of it, it was a stab wound. Then there was a gash on his head. That one could wait a little bit. Priorities. They had them.

She turned around hoping by now Dick would be running through the door with their extensive med kit, more than likely from the cave, but instead she saw her mother crumpled up against the doorjam cradling her head. _Dammit, another episode._

Damian looked up from Jason's leg and saw exactly what his niece was looking at. "Robynn, get her out of here," he commanded.

The teen froze for a moment, torn between her very hurt father and a migraine suffering mother.

"Now, kid!" Damian barked.

Robynn quickly escorted her mom down the hall to her parent's room, keeping her movements smooth. It was almost routine now; getting her mom away from the action of the day, take off her shoes and jacket, cut the lights, draw the curtains, help her with her painkillers, and leave her be for a half hour. Robynn was used to it, but she hated seeing her mom, the only female role model she ever had, look defeated.

It was going to be a rough evening.

/ / /

Robynn was asked to stay out of the room her uncles kept Jason in when she finished taking care of her mother. Good thing too since no one had gotten Bruce yet.

She knew all too well where to find him.

It was Tuesday, and he spent his Tuesday nights in the cave. It was just the way things were.

Before she could even open the clock door to enter the cave Bruce was already at the entrance on his way out. "What is it?" he asked. She never came to the cave unless it was an emergency.

"It's dad," she breathed.

With that Bruce was following her up to where Jason lay. They both entered and saw Damian and Dick working on Jason. "What happened, Dick?"

Dick was busy bandaging up his leg when he answered, "We were at the mall, rooting through the place for that car part for the Silverado and Sarah was at the pharmacy. Jason watched the doors. We were about the leave when we couldn't find him, but when we did on the other side of the place we found him bleeding out."

"He was responsive a little bit ago, now he's just sleeping" Damian added.

"What's keeping Dad down?" Robynn asked, trying to hide the little hint of fear in her voice.

Damian shrugged, "His vitals are better than they were a half hour ago, but his blood pressure is a little low, but he lost a lot of blood."

"What about the head injury?" Bruce asked pointing to the fresh stitched at Jason's brow.

"Like Damian said, he was responsive. No signs of a concussion, but I would feel better watching out for it."

Bruce nodded in agreement. "We know how it happened?"

Dick and Damian looked up at their father. "I don't know," Dick said.

"It was a stab wound," Damian said with finality.

Robynn raised an skeptical look at the youngest Wayne, "But no one is out there? He could have just tripped and fell on a piece of glass."

"Please tell me Bruce that my niece isn't being serious?" Dick asked.

Bruce placed a hand on his granddaughter's shoulder, "You dad doesn't just _trip_. And where is that piece of glass?" He paused on that thought. "This was deliberate."

The room fell quiet. "How is that possible? No one is out there," said Robynn.

"I don't know." Bruce turned and started to walk out the door. "But we are going to up the security until Jason can tell us what happened."

_**I did a time jump, don't care. I know some of the characters are a little OOC, but time and people change people. I made Damian loosen up, Dick just being himself, Jason will be a kick-ass dad, poor Sarah, and Bruce starting to come out of the abyss. There is still way more development underway so if this upsets you, keep reading, it will get awesome.**_

_**So I spent the last week in my music theory lectures planning on tying up the loose ends and making this story have a freakin' epic ending, but I love hearing what you guys have to think about where this is going. I can't tell you how excited I am! Be awesome and leave a review to let me know what you think!**_

_**-Amie**_


	20. Stubborn

That evening was rough. Between Sarah's episodes, Jason's injury, and the possibility of them not being alone after all with a hostile entity had the family exhausted trying to counter it all. Damian and Dick took turns checking in on Jason every hour or so. It was still Tuesday and Bruce had those evenings reserved for the cave for his few hours of hope the League would be reached. It would be forgiven tonight after the scare, and now Bruce was in the cave flipping aged switches to the security measures around the estate. Food sounded great to Dick, even if it was rabbit stew for the eighth night in a row, and a little time in Bruce's old study working on his little project for his own entertainment; documenting the lost years of Gotham. It wasn't much, just the chronicles of the family since Gotham fell, but in his heart he knew they would all meet their maker and they should leave something behind for the next stage of humanity to learn from.

Despite it all the events were too major as compared to the past. Robynn was a little rattled, but what can you expect from a teen who didn't grow up the batfamily way. The craziest thing she had seen was hunting accidents resulting in broken bones from falling out of a tree, which was usually her. Between checking in on her mother, who was coming out of the medicated haze, she finished her evening chores in the kitchen and laundry. She had a system to get them done fast and get them done right so she would have enough time to do her own thing in the evening before the overall shutdown of the manor at one in the morning.

Some sleeping habits would never die.

Robynn had her little habits of sparring and training in the gym, usually with her dad or uncles, then winding down after a shower with a book. Dick tried to teach when she was younger basic gymnastics, to start her while she was young, but she lacked the finesse. She was quick though, and when Damian deemed her worthy he began to teach her combat, much against Sarah's wishes. Sarah taught her hunting and survival skills that her late grandfather taught her along with piano, and Jason with weapons. Bruce handled schooling.

Just as Robynn had wrapped up cleaning the kitchen Sarah appeared in the doorway looking exhausted, her hair completely disheveled. "Better?"

Sarah nodded and smiled grabbing a kitchen chair to sit on, "As I can be." The stew was still warm when Robynn served it. "Thanks."

She continued her chores. "So was this something gradual that you happened to forget your meds for or an ice pick?"

"Ice pick," Sarah grumbled.

"Did it happen before or after Dad took the hit?"

Sarah shot her a death glare as if to say how-dare-you. "After, just as we loaded him to the back of the Silverado."

"Sorry."

"I checked on your father, he looks better."

"Yeah, well he may look better but we both know what a pain in the ass his mood is when he is down for the count."

"Language, young lady."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Robynn mumbled turning back to the kitchen sink.

Silence fell between the mother and daughter. Sarah could see past her daughter's calm demeanor, especially the slight tremble and light movements around her mother. It was obvious that Robynn was shaken up slightly from the day. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"It's no big deal, mom."

"You're father wouldn't agree."

"Honestly that doesn't surprise me one bit," she chuckled.

Sarah got up and stepped beside her daughter taking away the dirty dish from her hands. "Get out of here, I'll finish up."

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth she smiled and left the kitchen. Robynn was quick to get out of there and fast to change into her gym clothes, which when her mother wasn't looking was just a sports bra and shorts. In that outfit she had to slink around the manor to get to her location, so her uncle's wouldn't see. She was relieved when she got down there that she was alone. The next hour would be bliss. Robynn wasn't graceful when she ran, blame flat feet. She had a likening to dancing around to her jams in private. It was going to work to clear her mind after the day's events. Robynn would rather forget ever seeing her father, someone she thought as indestructible, be defeated. She always looked up to him and her uncles as her rock when her earth, her mother, had her occasional faults.

She loved her family. They were her world and she knew of nothing else. It scared her to see someone in her family seriously hurt like that.

She threw on a t-shirt and walked back down toward her room, only a few doors down from the study where her father lay. It was obvious he was awake and coherent, she could hear him grumble and move around knocking stuff over.

/ / /

Jason woke up obviously in pain. Nothing he couldn't handle as long as he had the meds to deal with it. He tried to remember what had happened, but all he could think of was hearing a noise around the corner, a searing pain, and then darkness. It brought back memories of the good old' days. He smiled at the thought until he couldn't handle the pain anymore and tried to reach the orange cylinder of pills on the other side of the room. "Godammit!"

He could sense someone was watching him. It was his daughter, looking smug and chuckling at him from the doorway.

Now he was pissed. "Hey, bystander! Help me out here!"

Robynn moved into the room, "How about you sit down and let me do the work, grumpy."

"I just need the pills."

"No shit," Robynn cursed. She could get away with cussing around her father far more easily than her mother.

"I need about two," he said hissing as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I'll give you three for good measure, looks like this is a low dosage."

Jason took them dry. Robynn watched with a sly smile on her face. "What?"

"Nothing. I'm starting to see where I get the stubbornness from."

Yeah, that was so his daughter. She had his mouth. "How long was I out?"

"Only a few hours, so was mom."

Another migraine, he thought. "She with the living?"

"Yeah, said it was an icepick. I took care of her when you both got into the house."

"When did it happen?"

"She said it was right after they found you."

Silence.

"You shouldn't be taking care of us," Jason said, feeling calmer with the meds starting to kick in.

That caught her off guard. "Huh?"

"We're you're parents, we should be taking care of you, giving you something normal to live on."

"Dad-"

"No, listen."

"And I have heard this sermon among the millions of others from all of you since I was old enough to understand what happened before I was born with all of you and what I found, what the hell is normal?"

"How often do you think kids your age back in the day saw their parents get hurt or sick and have to take care of them?"

"You and mom did."

Jason knew she had his number. It was beginning to be a common thing since she was twelve. His little girl was smart, sometimes too smart and he and Sarah couldn't quite figure out how to get that under control. "And I swore when we found out she was pregnant with you that you weren't going to have that."

"Well this is my normal, dad!" Robynn snapped. "What made you think being raised in an empty world was going to be normal. I don't care as long as I have you and mom and the others. You know, for a minute I thought I wasn't going to have that seeing you a bloody mess, and I call that little reaction normal."

Jason didn't say anything for a moment. "You may have my mouth but you are so your mother."

/ / /

It was three in the morning when Robynn was startled awake. She was always a light sleeper. The noise had come from the kitchen. Her room was the closer to it than the others. Slowly she made her move out of her room with a pistol in hand (something that was standard issue in every room when she was old enough) in blue flannel pants and gray t-shirt. She knew it wouldn't be Winchester; the old dog was still sound asleep at the foot of her bed. "Some kind of watch dog you are."

Slowly and methodically she moved down the hall in the shadows. The kitchen light was off, already a sign of trouble. Someone or something was in there. She thought about running back to get help, but the likely hood of making noise in the process was high. Robynn stayed close to the walls and toptoed to the kitchen doorway. In the moonlight shadows through the windows she could make out a shadow and the sound of heavy boots. Whoever was wearing them was light on their feet.

Robynn readied the trigger and swallowed her nerves down. "Get out," she said, her voice deadly low. The shadow froze then slowly turned around. Robynn couldn't see any features but she figured in the silhouette of the moonlight the intruder was female. "I mean it."

The undeniable sound of a blade being unsheathed was heard, slow and scary, something out of those cheesy Indiana Jones movies that Robynn was forced to watch by Dick. "Who are you?"

The shadow remained silent, but it went after Robynn, the blade barely grazing her abdomen.

Like instinct, Robynn went into combat mode. She knew she was going to need back up and shot the gun into the ceiling to wake the others. Each swing of the blade backed her up against the wall, but she slid down and kicked the shadow's feet out from under them. Quickly the shadow got back up and dropped the blades. Robynn went for the kitchen knives while the shadow jumped on the table, hitting Robynn across the face with something metallic and knocking her down. The shadow jumped on top of her, but Robynn countered it by kicking it in what she presumed was the chest, thrusting her into the china hutch, breaking plates along the way. Glass fell and shattered as they continued their altercation, smashing the small kitchen table and throwing chairs. There were probably glass shard and blood all over Robynn's body, but she was in a fight and didn't care.

The lights flicked on, and when Robynn looked up she saw Damian and her grandfather armed and ready. All was still again. The shadow was brought into light showing a woman dressed to look like the next closest thing to a ninja assassin, with long dark hair, almost flawless. She looked up at Bruce too, with a face the screamed shock and, was that relief?

Damian lowered his weapon as well as Bruce.

Bruce broke the silence. "Talia?"

_**I feel like this was a really sucky chapter. Eh, I had to get in this little twist somehow. Leave a review, because I love those. If there are any mistakes, just pretend they don't exist.**_

_**I won't be updating any time soon until about the middle of May since I am wrapping up the semester, going to Ireland and Rome with the wind ensemble and Marching 110 for our Euro Tour, have a shit load of rehearsals, sorority responsibilities, and work. Enjoy it!**_


	21. Scarring

"I think I'm gonna need more local anesthetic for you," Dick grumbled as he finished the last stitch on his niece's brow. He had to stitch up her abdomen next and that was going to be a bitch without anything to numb it that is once he had her laying flat on the table down in the batcave. Robynn glanced down to finally see the blood stains on her shirt. She could see and feel the cloth sticking and drying to the wound she acquired from the blade. It was deep enough to be of concern but not enough for anyone to freak out over. Okay, they all did, since it was Jason and Sarah's daughter, Damian and Dick's niece, and Bruce's granddaughter. This was someone they never wanted to get hurt, especially like this.

"Awesome," she sighed. Slowly while Dick prepped the syringe she eased herself flat hissing at the little tug the fabric pulled from her flesh.

Sarah was at her side, holding her hand as if she was expecting her daughter to squeeze it to distract from the pain, but no. Her daughter was a tough cookie. She couldn't decide if this was something to be proud of or be concerned. "Easy," she soothed. "You need anything?"

Robynn sighed, "Yeah, super healing powers so I can get in there and give that bitch of taste of her own medicine."

"You really need to watch your mouth."

Dick laughed at the mother-daughter bickering. Methodically cleaned the bloody mess, injected around the wound and began to thread the flesh shut. Sarah watched her daughter as she had closed her eyes as if to disappear somewhere else, brushing the few bloody strands of hair away from her face. Dick took his eyes off the worksite and took a good look at his niece, now sweating. "How are you feeling, kid?"

Robynn opened her eyes for a brief moment. "Like my stomach is a brand new shoe and you are putting laces in it."

"At least you are honest."

Robynn had a few hundred questions on her mind that she wanted to ask. Who the hell was this Talia chick? Why did she damn near kill her? Is her grandfather, father and uncle insane to be practically entertaining her upstairs? "So what is going on up there?"

Dick sighed, "It's complicated."

"I got all the time in the world."

"It is way more complicated than that."

Sarah looked up at Dick, "Give us the cliff notes. Bruce knows her."

Dick continued his stitching, "Yeah, we all do."

"She was part of the past life, wasn't she? A little girl then?"

Dick shook his head, "Not a little girl. Not as long as I remember." He was quiet for a moment, thinking about what he was going to say next. "Jason never told you about him and her?"

Sarah snapped her glance his way, bracing for a betraying piece of truth. "Who is she, Richard?" Even Robynn knew when her mom got venomous like that, it was best to give her what she wanted and run for cover. No one messes with mama bear's cub.

"Her name is Talia al Ghul. Bruce's old flame, Jason's ressurector, and Damian's mother."

Sarah raised a skeptical eyebrow, "Isn't she a little young to be his mother? And what do you mean by resurrect?"

"Now this is where it gets complicated." He told them what Jason never told Sarah. Talia was responsible for Jason coming back to life, and that fact that he died he kept secret from his family. They only indulged the Batman and Justice League Secrets to her, but Jason refused to tell her and his daughter about how he came to be the ass hole he once was, and the killer too. "And that was what he meant all those years ago, that was what he meant by the greatest failure?"

Dick nodded as finished up the last stitch.

Robynn slowly sat up, grimacing at the new threads tugging her flesh. "So what is her deal with Damian? I mean, mom is right, she looks a little young to be Damian's mother."

Dick sighed, "That is a little more complicated than her connection with Jason." And he told them everything.

/ / /

"I'm fine, mom. I can walk." She had already had enough of her hovering, albeit the help was needed to get up the stairs back into the house. Dick had given her a few different injections to ward off any infection and a painkiller for good measure. Sarah let go of her daughter but stayed close by watching for any signs pain from the stitches. Robynn got a few steps out in the hallway before she started leanings against the wall for support. "I got this," she winced.

Sarah huffed, "Not really." She wrapped her arm around her daughter's shoulders and guided her to her room. "Just breath through it and you can knock off for a while." Dick had already gone off to meet with Bruce and his brothers.

Sarah watched with her mama bear senses on high alert. In her mind Robynn could sixty years-old and she would still worry about her. Nothing would ever change that.

When they entered Robynn's room Sarah flipped on the lights and helped her daughter get situated to rest for a few hours. They all lost some sleep but Robynn was beginning to feel the effects from the low-grade painkiller Dick had given her; she looked ready to collapse under her tough kid exterior. Alone Robynn eased herself on the bed while Sarah cursed as she rummaged through her daughter's clothing pile in front of her closet for bloodless sweat and at least an oversized shirt. By the time she had found the items Robynn was flat on her back, completely out like a light. She wasn't even under the covers. It was probably too warm from the summer heat for that. Sarah placed the clothes on the corner of the bed and drew a sheet over her daughter. Sarah sat down and looked at her daughter. She hated seeing her daughter hurt, even when she was little and it was a scraped knee. She was supposed to protect her daughter, not the other way around. Hell if she wasn't so exhausted and out of it she would have woken up and caught this Talia chick or at least woken up Dick, Damian, or Bruce. The blood in her daughter's hair didn't settle the guilt, even as she brushed it away behind her ear.

It was the first time in years, since Robynn discovered the family secret that Sarah felt like a failure to her daughter. There was no way she could give her the life that she missed out on even if she couldn't control the world's end. She would never have friends her own age, play a sport, or play for an audience that wasn't her family on the piano. Robynn would only know of a world involving hunting for her food, weapons for protection, scavenging, and of Gotham. This Talia that she was told did something to her daughter that she could have prevented.

Sarah had to get away from the thoughts. If Jason would remedy the situation of always telling her that she was doing something right if we had a healthy and happy daughter that wasn't a nutcase after living with them, something he joked about every so often too. Something out of the corner of her eye stopped her from leaving the room. It was a beaten up copy of The Canterbury Tales with a bookmark at the Wife of Bath's Prologue. Sarah remembered reading the tales briefly in high school and remembered like the Wife the best. Under that was James Joyce and beside that was some Ginsberg. The more she looked around she saw books spread out a few different places. She looked closely at one stack being James Patterson books. There was an anthology here and there. These were probably books she took from the library or from Dick's collection. After the books she recognized a few vinyl records. There were a few from back in the day artists released singles in vinyl, like Green Day, and a couple classics like 38 Special. At least she has taste, she thought. The more she looked around and got past the gun laying in an open dresser drawer the more she saw things that looked like it belonged to a normal past-life teenager.

Maybe Sarah didn't screw up so much after all.

/ / /

When Sarah made her way down to the den where the men had gathered it was all eyes on her; something wasn't right, especially since Jason looked a bit defeated. Talia didn't acknowledge her. "So what's going on?" she asked.

Jason looked up at his partner, "How's Robynn?" Naturally he was concerned.

"Out cold. At least a dozen plus stitches but she'll bounce back."

Jason nodded, "Good."

Talia turned to face Sarah, "I am sorry for what I have done-"

"Save it," she responded, pissed off.

Bruce stood up, "I assume you know who she is but Talia this is Sarah, Sarah this is Talia."

Female tension filled the room, and it was the most awkward thing any of the Wayne men have ever felt.

"What is she doing here?" Sarah asked.

"I have come to look for any life or a suitable environment to rebuild."

Dick spoke up, "She has people."

"Yes, and they need a place that isn't so primitive that they can flourish and begin to rebuild human society. A new civilization," Talia explained.

Sarah looked up and down this woman. She was more offended by the weapons she had. "Awful armed for it, huh?"

"Sarah-"Damian interrupted.

"No, Damian, I get it. I have a kid too."

"I understand that you don't trust me, that all of you don't." Talia seemed apologetic.

"Of course I don't, you hurt my husband, not once, but _twice_ and you sliced our child after breaking in to our home. Yeah, there are some major trust issues there."

"At least hear what she has to say!" Bruce snapped. When Bruce commanded, you listened. He was the passive bystander of disaster that she had met years ago. Even in his old age he could be a force to be reckoned with.

Talia began, "My father, he dreamed of a better world. His methods were radical, yes, but they had good intentions. He created the virus that you now know wiped out humanity. That was not his intention, not of this proportion. It was simple, to rid the world of the weakest, save for the strong, a rebirth if you will. He spent years designing a supervirus to do so and unleashed it first in the slums of Los Angeles. My father and The Shadows had every failsafe planned with every world government. What he didn't account for was the chaos that ensued at every public place, airport, and government building. One by one world leaders died and there was nothing we could do. It became clear that we couldn't manipulate evolution. We feared for our safety and hid. If the world knew that it was us…"

Jason had heard enough and mustered all his strength to put Talia against the wall in fury. "You have no idea what you have done!"

Dick and Damian pulled him off her. Sarah and Bruce watched, both trying to hold in their equal amounts of rage. "Stop it, Jason." Dick said.

"No! She and her _father_ killed everyone, and what did they do? They hid!" He stared Talia down. "Do you realize you have taken everything away, all because of your father's negligence?"

Damian let go of his brother. "Is it true, mother?"

Talia nodded in agreement.

Damian stepped back running his hand through his shaggy black hair trying to process what he had just learned.

Sarah fought a tear when she did the personal family body count. "Alfred, Tim, Barbara, my father are all dead."

Talia gathered herself back into her royal-esque form. "Which is why I have come to seek this family and my son out and offer reparations if you saw fit."

"What are these reparations?" Bruce asked.

"The people I have, they need a place to repopulate."

"What kind of people."

_**Sorry about the wait. Anyways, the end for this is in sight, don't know how many more chapters though. Reviews, my lovelies! I like reviews!**_


	22. Healing

Hey readers,

I'm going to be totally honest here with you because you have all been really amazing and I don't want to leave you all hanging. I'm going to discontinue this fic, permanently. I don't know what it is but I think I just got bored and my muse wants to do different things. I have been at this since September and I just don't feel it anymore, you know what I mean. Such a shame because I only had two or three chapters planned, but getting them started and done felt like a chore.

Here is what would have happened. "Spoilers!"

People would slowly return to Gotham by the thousands. The Wayne family decides to put up all the security measures in an effort to remain left alone for the most part and let the people decide what was better for them.

Sarah's migraine issue would be resolved with the use of a modified lazarus pit-like solution. This would of course be a conflict issue between her and the batboys, but hey, it would have worked out well.

There would have been sooo much Damian and Talia tension that Damian pretty much calls her a bad mother and runs her out.

Robynn would go out and mingle among the people trying to be like one of them. Obviously there would be a lot of issues between her and her parents about her safety, especially when she sees her first murder. I planned to pull a Chris Nolan on all of ya'll and create a boyfriend by the name of Terry that she sees.

Epilogue would have been ten years later when the population has grown drastically and crime is all up. Arkham is back and up and running. Bruce would have passed away by now but the legend of the Batfamily still lives. Damian takes up the cowl. Dick retires Nightwing but holds down the fort with Sarah both as a form of Oracle. Jason would still be Red Hood and Robynn would be, you guessed it, Robin.

The End.

Stay Shiny, my friends!

-Amie


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